


Forge a Path for the Crossroads

by Maeve_of_Winter



Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, F/M, Family Secrets, Father-Daughter Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Misses Clause Challenge, Ollie is Cissie's dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-21 16:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maeve_of_Winter/pseuds/Maeve_of_Winter
Summary: Now living as simply Cissie King-Jones rather than Arrowette for the first time in her life, Cissie struggles to keep her old friends, overcome old habits, and find out what being herself actually means, all while contending with a shocking revelation about her parentage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady Sarai (lady_sarai)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_sarai/gifts).



> A big thank you to Morbane, my beta for this fic.
> 
> This fic was written for Lady_Sarai, my Yuletide recipient for this year. I really appreciated the chance to write about Cissie, and even though I'd never heard the theory that Cissie was Oliver's daughter, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write for you.
> 
> The exact timing of this fic is fairly nebulous and plays fast and loose with precise comics continuity just like the medium itself. The setting has been updated to modern times rather than set during the 90's, hence some of the more modern references.

Cissie hadn’t ever planned on stealing the DNA of the man she suspected to be her father so she could secretly send it away for testing. Yeah, she went ahead and did it anyway, which she’d fully cop to if anyone asked her about it, but it wasn’t, like, premeditated or anything.

It was just that after an emergency in Keystone City when Bart ran to her and begged her to come back with him (“Cissie, please, please, please, you don’t have to be Arrowette again, but people are hurt and we need all the help we can get!”), there was a perfect opportunity, and conflicted as she was on the ethics of it, Cissie realized she couldn’t pass it up.  

The part she was given in the relief effort was helping out with wounded, both capes and civilians. The danger was over, but Gorilla Grodd and his army’s assault on the city had left it in shambles. Just as Cissie was going around, handing out fresh bandages and disinfectant to anyone who needed and checking to make sure no critical injuries had been missed, she spotted _him_ lying on a cot, with a blonde woman who was wearing a leather jacket over what looked like cocktail waitress’s outfit tending to him.

In an instant, a memory from earlier in the summer flashed through Cissie’s mind.

_“Who’s her dad, Green Arrow?”_

_“Yes.”_

Bonnie’s response had been an irritated mutter, and though Cissie had tried to dismiss it at the time as just her mother’s sarcasm, a spike of unease had pierced through her even then.

Maybe it was time for some answers.

Walking up to the woman, Cissie offered her new bandages. “Need any of these?” she asked, trying to not to let her voice shake as her heart began pounding in her chest. She watched Green Arrow closely; she thought he might be asleep or unconscious, but with his mask, she couldn’t be sure.

The blonde woman turned to her and gave her a strained smile. “Thanks.” She began slowly peeling off several blood-splattered strips of gauze that had been taped to Green Arrow’s chest, leaving the bottom layers but covering them up with fresh pieces that were white as untouched snow. She put the used pieces aside, and Cissie’s gaze tracked her movements as she realized how easy it would be to reach out and grab them.

Just as she was psyching herself up to do so, woman turned toward her again, and Cissie wondered wildly if she’d been discovered. But the woman only picked up the medical tape; she didn’t even look at Cissie as she went to fix the new bandages in place. Instead, all of her attention was focused on Green Arrow, looking at him like he was the only other person in the world.

Something inside of Cissie squirmed as she watched the two of them.

“Is he going to be all right?” she found herself asking, and as she did, she couldn’t help but feel like she was intruding.

The woman nodded, still not looking at her. “He’ll make a full recovery in no time. The wound is only superficial.”

Cissie’s heart was hammering in her chest as she absorbed the woman’s words, paranoid that any moment she would see right through her or begin wondering about her concern.

She should go. Before this woman began wondering why she was asking so many questions.

But she needed those bloody pieces of gauze. She needed to know. And before she was even aware of it, she was casually reaching over to retrieve them.

“I’ll just get rid of this garbage for you,” Cissie heard herself say, pulse racing through her veins with the speed of a bullet train, and began inching away as the woman gave a silent nod of approval, her attention still focused on Green Arrow.

With her back to them both, Cissie slipped the gauze into her pocket, adrenaline surging through her as she did. As she walked away, she did her best to keep her footsteps measured and even. She was certain she would be found out, sure that woman or Green Arrow would spring up after her and confront her about what she’d done.

But no one chased after her, and once the recovery effort was finished, Cissie returned to school even in spite of it being August—thanks to her “unique” custody situation, she was a year-round student. Once back in her dorm, the only place she’d ever considered a home, she took a moment to consider her options.

It had been pretty skeevy of her to steal the gauze with Green Arrow’s blood—that was, like, Batman levels of invading someone’s privacy for a good cause.

And the cause was good. Cissie had a right to know who her dad was.

Propping her feet up on her desk, Cissie debated with herself back and forth for several moments, wondering if her ends could justify the means. (Just thinking that made her sound like a supervillain.)

Finally, she decided that if the results were negative, she could spend her time feeling bad about going behind Green Arrow’s back. She could probably even work out a way to get in contact with him through one of her friends and apologize.  

If the results were positive . . . well, then her morally questionable methods were the least of her problems.

Carefully wrapping up the gauze, she labelled it “John Doe,” included a blood sample of her own that bore the alias “Jane Smith,” and then mailed both off to a testing facility.

She was worrying over nothing, Cissie told herself. Fake parents and hidden biological parents was the stuff of bad plot twists on cheesy daytime soap operas no one would admit to actually watching. It wasn’t real life.

And yet she herself checking her mailbox at school every day after sending it in, and when the results were finally mailed back to her three weeks later, she found that she couldn’t bring herself to open them.

* * *

She’d come back to the Elias School an Olympic champion. Before that, she’d been Arrowette. Before Arrowette . . . she’d been a five-year-old standing at her father’s graveside. Or maybe Bowstring Jones was just the man she’d been raised to believe to be her father. Either way, Cissie King-Jones might as well have been buried with him that day for all that her existence had been recognized. Arrowette had been the only one to ever matter. Bonnie had made sure of that.

That was going to change. Sophomore year was officially Resurrect Cissie King-Jones Year. And first order of business was to find some extracurriculars outside of archery.

Club Day happened twice a year, at the start of each semester at Elias when class was over for the first day back. Representatives from each campus club or organization set up a table in the gym in order to recruit new members. Cissie attended with the goal of finding at least three new clubs to join, knowing her social life could use the boost, especially now that she didn’t have a roommate to hang out with. In a move that had surprised them all, Greta had decided to spend the semester abroad in Ireland as part of a school exchange program. She emailed every week with photos of the countryside and herself with host family, and in each one she looked like she was having a blast. Each time Cissie clicked through the pictures, she had to suppress a stab of envy that in only a few months, shy, cautious Greta had gone from not even knowing her own name to being willing to run off and spend months in a place she didn’t know while surrounded by total strangers.

Greta was moving forward. All of her friends were. But Cissie? Cissie was stuck in place. And she needed to start moving and catch up. And Club Day was her starting line.

She didn’t have to worry much about where to begin, though. Almost the moment she walked through the gymnasium doors, she heard someone calling her name.

 “Hey, Cissie! Over here!”

Looking around, Cissie spotted two girls waving at her from behind a nearby table. Recognizing them from a few shared classes, she walked over to speak with them.

“You should totally sign up for our club!” Katy told her. A petite girl with a button nose who almost always wore her long brown hair in a bouncy ponytail, she was rarely seen without a smile on her face.

“Frisbee golf?’ Cissie asked, glancing at their sign. “I always figured that for some kind of money laundering scheme, not a real thing.”

“Oh, it’s not about the frisbees,” the other girl, Anna Marie, told her with a devilish smirk. She was Katy’s best friend but her opposite in many ways: tall and buxom, favoring a goth style that suited her more subdued demeanor. At the moment, she’d left her shirt several buttons open to reveal a Victorian choker wrapped around her delicate ivory neck, and a hair clip in the shape of a skeleton key swept one side of her glossy auburn hair away from her face. “It’s about who we get to see when we’re out in the park and then when we go to breakfast afterward.”

“Moms jogging with their baby strollers and taking up the whole damn lane as they do it?” Cissie guessed. It had been her primary experience when she went to parks.

“Boys,” Katy giggled. “Basically, we arranged this club so we can go off campus and meet boys, and the school gave us permission.”

“It’s our year to party,” Anna Marie declared. She offered Cissie the sign-up sheet. “What do you say? Want a chance to get to know the locals?”

Cissie did not particularly want to get to know the locals, but she still signed up, rationalizing that it sounded like a fun and low-key way to spend time with her schoolmates. As she was adding her name, two more girls walked up to their table.

“I just wanted to tell you all that spots for Bio Club are filling up fast, so you’d better get a move on if you want to be a part of it,” one of them, Paige, warned. She was from the Midwest, if Cissie was remembering right, and she wore her blonde hair in a short bob with bangs, framing her friendly, freckled face.

“As expected,” the other girl, Jean, added. With long red hair and athletic body, she was both one of the best looking girls and best athletes at the school, in addition to being very involved in extracurriculars. “They only have thirty memberships available this year.”

Bio Club was a very popular club on campus. Having little to do with science, the club instead had the best day trips to places like amusement parks, Chinatown, and the renaissance fair. Given that Elias students were not allowed to leave campus outside of the otherwise rare school-approved event, the club was adored by the girls for providing an alternative to their frequent ennui. As such, the club only had a limited number of spots, and the exclusiveness and privilege of joining made it all the more desirable to the girls.

The news brought Katy to groan. “Ugh, I’ll never make it there in time. I’m stuck at this table for the next hour.”

“If you’re looking for another club to join, Mrs. Tanaka is recruiting members for some group she’s started,” Jean told her. “I don’t know the details, but I already signed up.”

“I could write your name on the Bio Club list, Katy,” Cissie offered. “I was just going over there to put my name down, anyway.”

“Would you?” Katy asked gratefully. “Thank you so much.”

Cissie said her goodbyes to her classmates and made her way to the Bio Club table, where she barely managed to scrawl her name and Katy’s in the penultimate and final spaces on the sign-up sheet before she was elbowed aside by another student eager to participate.

Her last club was something entirely new to both her and to the campus and was run by her history teacher, Mrs. Tanaka.

“Community Outreach?” Cissie read from the banner as she wandered up to the table.

Mrs Tanaka gave a proud smile. “It’s a pet project of mine. For years I’ve been wanting for Elias to get more involved in the local community, to come together with the town and surrounding areas. Now I’ve finally been given permission to get a group of students together and really find a way to help out.”

Cissie liked Mrs. Tanaka. She laughed often and was even-tempered and had given her a bouquet of roses when she’d come back after winning the gold at the Olympics. So she added her name to the sign-up sheet, dotting all three _I_ ’s in her name with a heart.

There was also an archery club, Cissie noticed as she said her goodbye to Mrs. Tanaka and made her way to the exit. She could join.

She didn’t.

* * *

Her dorm room was dark and quiet when she returned, and a twinge of loneliness ran through Cissie as she remembered when she would come home to find Greta talking through her moves while playing an online chess match or listening to music without headphones—she’d been a big fan of a prog rock band called Great Frog and had listened to them all the time. Now, Cissie was on her own.

Not bothering to turn on the lights, she tossed her backpack down onto the bare mattress of Greta’s empty bed and removed the envelope with the DNA results. She tried to make her hands stop shaking, but it was useless.

She didn’t have to look, Cissie told herself. She could put the envelope aside and never face the truth. Wash her hands of the drama of possibly discovering that her biological was alive. Not have to deal with even more resentment toward Bonnie for keeping the knowledge from her or cope with the anxiety from telling Green Arrow the truth—if he didn’t already know, that was.

Suddenly, Cissie found it difficult to swallow.

She twisted the manila envelope back and forth in her hands.

But she needed to know. She couldn’t walk away from this question. She wouldn’t.

Swinging herself up to sit on the wide window ledge to lean against one wall and prop her feet against the other, Cissie sat for a moment. Turning to press her forehead against the window, she looked out into the dark and let the moonlight stream onto her face, taking one deep breath and then another, trying to calm herself. But even then, she couldn’t help but noticed that it was a full moon—bright enough to read by.

Refusing to let herself hesitate any longer, Cissie leaned back, ripping open the envelope and sliding out the papers. Her heart in her throat, she skimmed each of the two pages, the words running together until he eyes leapt to a bolded sentence at the bottom of the second page.

_Conclusion: John Doe is the biological father of Jane Smith._

Cissie feel lightheaded. Maybe it was with relief. Maybe it was because of the road ahead of her—a long slog of trying to salvage some sense from this debacle.

She let her head thunk back against the wall. She’d already been sentenced to bearing the cross of enduring Bonnie as a mother—what would her father be like? Would he reject her? Had he _already_ rejected her, and that’s why Bonnie had let her think Bowstring was her dad? Or had Bonnie never told the man so that she could make sure he didn’t object to her forcing Cissie into superheroics?

And at this point, did it matter who had lied or didn’t tell who? That was her parents’ past—this was _Cissie’s_ present.

Shoving the papers back in the envelope, Cissie buried it in the bottom drawer of her desk.

She had her answer.

Now she just needed to decide what to do with it.


	2. Chapter 2

Life continued at Elias School in spite of her inner turmoil. Frisbee golf amounted to going to some local park with a group of students every Saturday and trying to play the course there, but thanks to the arrangement of the baskets, most of their time was spent fishing the frisbees out of the large pond. Cissie didn’t mind, though—it was still a lot of fun, and they always went out for brunch at the local diner afterward. If nothing else, the awful state of the park gave her the idea of a clean-up job for the outreach club. And while they didn’t really run into any boys, but one time they got yelled at by a park official Anna Marie thought was cute.

“He was handsome, wasn’t?” Anna Marie asked, casting a backwards glance at the official as he stormed away and they slunk off the course in the opposite direction. “In a gruff kind of way, I mean. And he’s not even that old.”

“He’s a jerk,” Katy grumbled. “I didn’t mean to hit him in the face with that frisbee, but I’m glad I did.”

Cissie patted her on the shoulder. “It was preemptive karma, Kat. You did the right thing,” she said, caught by surprise with how easily she was bantering with them.

It was just Katy and Anna Marie that Cissie found herself getting along with. Now that they were in the Bio Club together, Cissie found herself spending more and more time with Paige (Katy had traded away her membership to another girl to get permission to pursue the girl’s ex-boyfriend. It didn’t work out.) Being part of the club really just meant giving tours of the ritzy new science building to any visiting alumni or prospective students, writing letters thanks donors, and going to youth conferences and then going on some fun trip afterward. More and more often, Cissie found herself partnering up with Paige to give the tours, and on the next bus trip together, this one for sightseeing in Opal City, Cissie boarded the bus to find Paige waving her over to sit with her and her friends from the cross country team.

“This way, Ciss!” she called, pointing to a seat she’d saved.

As she went to join her, Cissie couldn’t hold back a grin. It was always a good feeling to be wanted.

But even with all of the glamourous trips for Bio Club, her favorite club turned out to be Community Outreach. They’d had their first meeting, and they were starting off with some basic projects—a clean-up of the roadside for the local highways and of the area’s parks, and the installation of recycling bins at key points around Bear Creek Crossing, the town that the Elias School was technically a part of. They were also planning on sponsoring a Halloween party for the children of all the employees of the school, teaching and service staff alike, but they were still in the prep stage at the moment.

“We do have a fairly generous budget for the party,” Jean remarked as she looked over the figures, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear as she did. She was one of the Outreach Club members, having joined alongside Cissie. “It might be nice to spring for pizza for the kids so the parents don’t have to worry about going home and rushing them through dinner before taking them to back over to the school.”

Listening to Jean, Cissie was surprised to find herself not interested in the planning but actively invested and with her own opinion to contribute. “That’s true,” she agreed. “But we don’t just have to worry about budgeting financially—we have to budget the space we’re given to work with. If we’re going to provide dinner, we’re also going to need to have tables for the kids to sit and eat. If we take tables for that, will we have enough left for the kids to make crafts and carve pumpkins?”  

There was a lot else that needed to be considered and coordinated, but eventually Cissie realized that was why she liked it. If she was focused on party planning and tree-planting initiatives, she had no time to think about either of her parents.

Her fondness for the projects wasn’t shared by Kon when she told him about it.

“Seriously?” he asked in disbelief. “They have you going around picking up trash like some criminal on a chain gang?”

“Not like a criminal,” Cissie replied, mildly annoyed. “Like someone who cares about the place that they live and wants to make it better.”

“Yeah, Kid, it’s not about being a criminal,” Cassie said, poking Kon in the arm. “Cissie just cares a lot, like we all should,” she added supportively.

The Young Justice team was currently visiting Cissie in her dorm, as they did every few weeks so they could catch up with her. Admittedly, it would have been easier to go meet them elsewhere, but it was exciting to have whole host of secret visitors and fun to get away with each time. Robin hadn’t been thrilled with the idea at first, but eventually Cissie had convinced him to use it as a stealth exercise to see how quickly the team could hide if someone knocked on her door.

“Go back to talk about the frizz-bee thing,” Bart said with a quizzical frown. “People really throw plastic circles at a stick in the ground? For fun? Why?”

“Like regular golf,” Anita told him. “Some players take it seriously, but a lot of them just like the chance to talk with their friends.”

_Friends._

A rush of guilt flared through Cissie as she sat amongst her former teammates. They were the first friends she’d ever had, still the closest friends she’d ever had, and she hadn’t breathed a word to them about her discovery. Greta didn’t know, either. Cissie hadn’t told anyone. She hadn’t been ready to talk, but now she couldn’t help but feel as though she should be.

Robin sat down next to her, and as Cissie turned to look at him, she thought she could see him studying her from beneath his mask.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

It was a perfectly innocuous question, perfectly conversational, but in that moment, Cissie couldn’t help but think that he knew precisely everything she’d been trying not to think about—knew all about the papers she hid away in her desk.

She faked a smile, even though she knew Robin would instantly recognize her dishonesty. “Just fine, thanks.”

It was her first instinct to lie—she didn’t question it. But as it registered what she’d said, she suddenly realized that she regretted it—she wanted to talk about the knowledge with someone, share her discovery with a friend. Carrying this secret alone was a burden, and at that time, surrounded by her friends, she became aware of just how deeply she yearned to confide in them.

She should tell them. She would.

For now, she settled in to watch the movie on the TV Bart had snuck in, even though she had to fight the urge to spill everything to them then and there. Several times she found herself glancing in Robin’s direction, tempted to amend her answer to his question and tell him what she knew, but she always bit her tongue.

He was the last of her friends to leave that night, and as he climbed out of her window, Cissie found herself fighting the urge to call him back.

* * *

Cissie had never told anyone, but she still sometimes did a nightly patrol with her bow around campus. She didn’t put on the costume, and it didn’t mean she was going back to being Arrowette, but sometimes, weirdly enough, it helped her feel normal. Bonnie had forced her to complete one every night from her twelfth birthday until the day she had lost custody, and Cissie supposed that old habits died hard.

After movie night had finished and her friends had gone, Cissie grabbed her archery gear and began her rounds, easily climbing out her window and flitting through the back gardens, skulking around in the shadows as she moved. Even Robin would have been proud by how thoroughly she kept covert.

_Robin._

She wasn’t going patrolling because seeing her old team had stirred up nostalgia within her. Their visit had nothing to do with why she’d felt the urge to go out that night. She just liked being a rebel and breaking curfew.

At least, that was what she told herself. But a familiar dread coiled within the pit of her stomach, a fear that had crawled across her brain every time she’d contemplated quitting as Arrowette and that hadn’t left her even once that she had: the she’d lose her friends now that she wasn’t on the team with them anymore.

But she hadn’t, Cissie told herself fiercely as she launched herself up the top of the belltower, a historic landmark of the school and the campus’s highest vantage point. She’d kept her old friends and made a new one in Anita even though she was out of the cape game.

When she stood on the top of the belltower, though, she could almost pretend that she hadn’t. That she was still working as a hero, that she could call up the team at any moment and rush off with them on their next mission.

But she _had_ quit, and for good reason. She’d quit after years of wanting to stop, she’d quit before she completely betrayed herself, before she’d lost herself entirely in the identity of Arrowette, before she’d become someone she could not face being.

Just because she’d hung up her crossbow and cowl didn’t mean she’d given up on her friends. And they hadn’t given up on her.

 _But what about Green Arrow?_ Cissie wondered suddenly as she gazed out at the darkened landscape below her, the cold light of the moon providing only the barest slivers of illumination. Would he have any use for a daughter who’d willingly given up on being a hero?

Assuming he had any use for a daughter at all, that was.

A childish daydream filled her mind, a hazy one, as if playing out from behind a Gaussian filter, of putting on her costume, grabbing her bow and quiver, and then running through the streets of Star City as the light of the setting sun streamed down on her, lengthening the shadows of the towering skyscrapers around her. She’d race across alleyways and docks until she found Green Arrow already engaged in combat with . . . whoever. Bank robbers. That archer mercenary guy. Whoever it was, Cissie would help take them down. Green Arrow would be impressed and grateful by her skill, and then she’d tell him the truth. And then he would . . . he would . . . he would take her out drinking at a bar and toast with her to their newfound father-daughter relationship. Or something.

She didn’t know what fathers and daughter did together. She barely remembered Bowstring. He’d dropped dead before she’d lost her first tooth.

But even as cheesy as her imaginings about Green Arrow were, the fantasy startled her, especially as she found herself automatically involving her costume. If it meant getting Green Arrow as a father, would she go back to being a hero even though she vowed to never be one again? Would she trade in her resolve to gain the affection of a parent she’d never known? One who had never hurt her?

She wanted to say that she wouldn’t. She wanted to say that she wasn’t the type of person who’d go back on their word. She wanted to say that now she was able to stand up for herself and no longer was the kind of person to let a parent walk all over her just so she wouldn’t have to endure their disapproval.

But staring out in the dark, the same dark that had surrounded her when she’d pursued Marcey’s murderers into that forest, Cissie found that she wasn’t so sure, even as she desperately wished she could be.


	3. Chapter 3

When Cissie had quit as Arrowette, a worry had begun worming around in the back of her mind that she’d never actually be able to be normal. After spending every waking second of the last decade being trained as a superhero by a mother who made the mom from _Gypsy_ look stable and well-adjusted, “normal” wasn’t really a category she’d had much experience in.

And yet, Cissie found herself doing fine. She looked forward to Saturday morning in the park with Anna Marie and Katy and the frisbee golf team even if they usually found themselves getting into some kind of trouble. She signed up for all of the Bio Club’s trips out and had a great time going ice-skating and canoeing and rock-climbing alongside Paige, even if she still didn’t see any apparent connection to biology.

“It’s not supposed to be about biology,” Paige confided in her. “I overheard the president one time repeating what the founder had told her: the ‘club’ part is just a way for us to get around our school’s draconian policy about leaving campus. We occasionally show off our science building to the public to make it look like we’re official. But really, it’s all about having fun.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Cissie replied with a shrug. It really was nice to get a while from campus every so often.

Community Outreach remained her favorite club, though. The Halloween party was a hit, and Cissie herself had found it a welcome distraction. She’d dressed up as Wonder Woman and had been sure to send Cassie, Greta, and Anita photos of her wearing the costume—which promptly led to Kon emailing her to request his own personal copies. Jean had followed her lead and dressed up as Mera, Queen of Atlantis, and the two of them were besieged all night by requests from parents for photo ops with their kids.

Jean was proving to be a valuable asset to the Outreach Club, mainly because she was involved in a bunch of other clubs and was able to bring in almost twenty new members just by getting the word out. But an increase in numbers meant an increase in need for strong leadership had developed, and Cissie was surprised to find herself stepping up to the task, even if, like the other members, Jean had specifically recruited her for it.

“You should give it a shot,” Jean encouraged her as they worked on recycling awareness posters one day in the library. “You had some good thoughts on organizing the Halloween party, and we definitely need to stay organized.”

“Me?” Cissie had never considered herself much of a leader. “Isn’t this more up your alley?”

“Cissie, once I finish her, I have to finish soundchecks for equipment for the school play, hold a forum for student council, and then go down to the gym for basketball practice,” Jean explained patiently. “I just don’t have the time to do anything more.”

Since Cissie was looking for distractions, and the club was going to need to stay organized if they wanted to continue, she ended up volunteering for the job. Henceforth, she met Mrs. Tanaka in her classroom for lunch once a week so they could discuss the club’s progress and projects.

“We have to be pragmatic in how we use our human capital,” Cissie declared, throwing in a few key phrases from a book she’d picked up on leadership—okay, industrial leadership, but leading was leading—and perused in order to distract herself from the DNA report waiting in her desk. “We’ve got nearly thirty members, and that means we could make a big difference with our upcoming activities.”

Mrs. Tanaka looked at her encouragingly. “Did you have any ideas, Cissie?”

“I’d really like to organize a time for us to volunteer with an after-school program sometime,” Cissie told her. “It could be a regular thing. There’s enough of us that we each could work with a couple of kids and help them with their homework or maybe read to them, give them attention that maybe their parents aren’t able to give to them.” Her mind briefly flashed to the wasteland of loneliness that was her childhood, how desperately she’d wished to have a friend, or at the very least, someone to look out for her and rescue her from being the unwilling subject to Bonnie’s tyranny. “Maybe it could specifically be for at-risk kids or those who are known to have problems at home,” she suggested.

And if any of those kids were at risk because their psychotic mother was pushing them into superheroics before they could drive, this time Cissie could return the favor and call child services.

“It can be our main goal for the spring semester,” Mrs. Tanaka said with smile. “I like your idea, Cissie. It’s important that our group makes a point of being involved on a recurring basis rather than just helping out once and acting as though the problem is solved. I’ve been in contact with some schools in the city to see if they’d be interested in our help—with permission from the admins there and just a little bit of refining, I’d say we can be making trips out to one of the schools as early as January.”

The city Mrs. Tanaka was referring to was Star City, where the Elias School was technically located. While the Elias School’s address officially listed its location as within Bear Creek Crossing, the place was so backwater that it wasn’t even considered an actual town, just an unincorporated community that was still within Star City’s jurisdiction.

So when Cissie had been removed from Bonnie’s custody and placed at the Elias School because of her mother’s insistence on putting her in danger so she could become a superhero, she’d actually been moved closer to her superhero father, regarded by many as a dangerous vigilante. She didn’t miss the irony, but she couldn’t say that she was particularly amused by it.

Pushing thoughts of her father out of her head, Cissie tried instead to revel in Mrs. Tanaka’s approval of her plan. It was rare for adults to show her much praise—not for her personality, at least. Bonnie had certainly never been concerned with it, and Dr. Sandsmark had always been kind to Cissie, it was always accompanied by a distinct concern for her rather than any compliments. Other than Red Tornado and Superman during that one time after she chewed out the assembled Justice League, no authority figure had exactly been rushing to wax lyrical about her.

It felt nice to have someone tell her that she was doing a good job for once. And Cissie found herself wondering if Green Arrow would have ever told her that.

 _No._ Dammit, why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? The entire reason she’d signed up for community service was so she didn’t have free time to agonize over whether to tell him or not.

She concentrated on the task at hand. “Did you have any thoughts on what we should be doing for the rest of the year? I have some more ideas if you need them.”

“It’s nothing groundbreaking,” Mrs. Tanaka admitted. “But since it’s always needed, we’re doing a food drive for Thanksgiving and a toy drive for Christmas. As a way to incentivize our students, though, Principal Foster has given permission to let us run a competition among the other clubs, sports teams, and various student councils. Whichever group collects the most food or toys will be getting a trip by charter bus into the city for a day to do whatever they’d like. God help Star City’s denizens,” she added wryly.

Cissie perked up. “Foster let you do that? That’s so cool. And I bet we’ll have kids champing at the bit for the opportunity.” Trips into Star City—or any town that had more than three stop lights—were a rare treat and part of the reason a spot in the bio club was so coveted. If there was any way to encourage the students at the Elias School to be charitable, it was by bribing them with a day out.

“ _Principal_ Foster is letting us run to contest twice, once for the food drive and once for the toy drive,” Mrs. Tanaka replied. “I’m thinking that we should officially measure the amount of food by weight and count the toys per item. And while I know most of our students are going home for Thanksgiving and can’t do very much to celebrate the holiday here, I’d really like to see if we could put on another party. Not for the children of the staff this time, but for the children of the families in need who are going to receive those toys. This time we’d be bringing the party to them instead of having it here at the school, but I’d like to give those kids every bit of Christmas they can get.”      

“Agreed,” Cissie said instantly. She welcomed the chance to busy herself. The holidays were usually a depressing time for her. Bonnie’s training for her hadn’t stopped just because it was Christmas, and any gifts Cissie had received had been new gear and gadgets for her hero career. They’d been gifts from the former Arrowette to present Arrowette. But Bonnie never actually gave any kind of gifts to her that were just for Cissie.

Well, no matter. She was going to give these kids the kind of Christmas she’d always wanted.

Another idea sparked in Cissie’s brain about how to make the party extra special. Kon liked being the center of attention, and while Cassie didn’t especially like children, she’d probably be happy to help. And Bart was pretty much always on the same level as a bunch of sugar-hyped elementary school students.

Given that Mrs. Tanaka had already liked her suggestions before, Cissie decided to test her luck.

“Hey, Mrs. Tanaka,” she began. “What do you say that for an extra Christmas present for these kids, we bring along some celebrity guests?”

* * *

The food drive turned out to be more of a success than Cissie could have ever dreamed. They managed to collect over _five thousand pounds_ of food for Star City’s food bank in less than three weeks. Vegeta could move right over as far as Cissie was concerned. Over _five thousand_. She’d never been more proud of the Elias School as she was that day. The food bank had needed to send a truck to just to pick up everything, and with two days before Thanksgiving, Cissie hoped there’d be enough time for the food to reach everyone who needed it.

“You know, I don’t even need the day trip,” Katy said, driving up to the donations center on a golf cart she must have commandeered from somewhere. Every space but her own seat was packed with bags of groceries. “Oh, I got Anna Marie to chat up that cute gym coach for me,” she said by way of explanation, seeing Cissie’s inquiring glance. “It really just feels good to know we can help. I don’t know that I’ve ever worked harder on something in my life, but it really does feel good.”

“Glad to hear it, because my swim team is going to have you all beat,” Paige had gloated, adding yet another bag to the swim team’s pile. She didn’t hesitate a moment, though, before helping Katy unload her own donations from the cart. “But you’re right about helping,” she added sheepishly. “It does feel good.”

Cissie smiled at the both of them, having realized the same thing somewhere along the line. It might have been strange, as Thanksgiving was a holiday that revolved around family, and Cissie didn’t have a family, nor had she and Bonnie ever celebrated the holiday. She had no emotional connection to the day whatsoever.And yet it still like an enormous accomplishment that she was able to make sure other families would be able to enjoy the day and put aside their worries for a little while.  

“Yeah,” she chimed in. “It does give you a good feeling, doesn’t it?”

What Paige had said about the swim team winning the contest was true. The swim team claimed the day trip into Star City with their contribution that totaled nearly eight hundred pounds, and Cissie decided to undertake the job of writing a letter of congratulations. Since it was the last day before Thanksgiving break, none of her teachers were bothering to introduce new material only to have students forget it over the next few days. Instead, they were allowing students to use the class time as a study hall. Since she knew Mrs. Tanaka had her last class period free, Cissie decided to obtain a pass and go to the empty history classroom to compose the letter at that time. She was just finishing typing up it on the classroom’s computer when Mrs. Tanaka returned from grabbing coffee at the faculty lounge weighed down with a large cardboard box, staggering forward with her arms ringed with bags bulging with non-perishables.

Immediately upon seeing her, Cissie jumped up to help. “I thought there was only going to be one pick-up from the food bank?” she questioned, accepting the heavy box from her teacher.

“There was, and it already happened,” Mrs Tanaka said. “But some of the faculty dropped these off in the lounge for me, and I didn’t see them until now. There’s still another four boxes back there. I guess I’ll be stopping by there before I drive home this afternoon.”

“I could help you,” Cissie offered. “And since the basketball team is helping out over there this afternoon for their own service project, you wouldn’t even have to give me a ride back. I could just catch a ride on their bus. We just have to ask the coach and then tell the main office.”

Mrs. Tanaka hesitated. “If you’re sure you wouldn’t mind.”

“Absolutely not,” Cissie assured her, hitting ‘print’ on her letter. She’d drop it off in the coach’s lobby mailbox when they went out to the parking lot. “And you know what? I’m going to print out some flyers. This would actually be a great time to spread the word about our Christmas party.”

They’d already given word to various elementary schools throughout the more impoverished areas of the city and were expecting a crowd, but they were prepared for it. Through Robin’s extensive web of connections, he’d managed to put Cissie in contact with Gar Logan, heir to the Dayton Industries conglomerate. Not only was Gar helping out with sponsoring the refreshments, gifts, and decorations, but he was also lending them the executive ballroom of Star City’s headquarters for the evening.

Mrs. Tanaka laughed warmly. “Look at you, Cissie, always staying organized. I lucked out when you became our club president.”

“Everyone got lucky when you decided to start this club,” Cissie told her sincerely, but inside, she was glowing as the praise. It just felt good somehow to be recognized for who she was as a person instead of her talent as an archer.

After hauling the boxes of food donations to Mrs. Tanaka’s teal Sable Mercury and checking in with the basketball coach to make sure Cissie would have a ride back and then letting the school know where they were going, the two of them set off to the food bank. It wasn’t an especially long drive, only about twenty minutes, but going from the farmland and rolling hills of Bear Creek Crossing to a street corner in the eastern district of Star City was like a difference like night and day.

When they arrived at the loading dock at the back of the building, Cissie was gratified to see that it was full of cars, with people striding back and forth to unpack their donations and bring them inside. Cheesy as it may have sounded, she couldn’t deny that a part of her was touched by seeing how much Star City’s citizens were helping each other. And as busy as the food bank was, it would be an excellent time to network.

Turning to Mrs. Tanaka, Cissie passed her the sheaf of Christmas party flyers. “Here, you take these and go see whoever you need to let people know what we’re doing. I bet the workers here would be happy to help us get the word out.”

“I can’t leave you here to lift all those heavy boxes by yourself,” Mrs. Tanaka protested.

“Go,” Cissie urged her gently. “You’re the more official-looking of the two of us, and you know how to explain better than I can. It’s the most efficient use of our time here.”

“All right,” Mrs. Tanaka agreed reluctantly. “But I’ll be back to help you as soon as I can.”

Cissie shook her head. “Don’t worry about that. I’m more concerned with making sure as many kids as possible are able to come to the party or making new connections for future projects.”

Mrs. Tanaka gave her shoulder a squeeze before she walked off. “You have a good heart, Cissie.”

Cissie could feel her face heat at the praise, and to hide her blush, she busied herself with grabbing the nearest box from the trunk and retrieving a few boxes that had spilled from it on the ride over.

To make the process a little bit easier on herself, instead of lugging each box all the way inside each time, she merely brought the boxes right up to the door, forming a pile there. That way she could give herself a little bit of a break between hauling each box up the loading bay stairs.

She managed to get all the boxes to the door, but at that point, evening was settling in, and aside from her the parking lot and bay area had cleared. Which meant that she was left on her own to figure out how to open the steel door while juggling a heavy box full of canned goods.

Just as Cissie had decided to try her luck holding the box in one hand and opening the door in the other, the door swung open, and a tall, well-built blond man with a beard and goatee stepped out.

“Need a hand?” he asked with a smile, his emerald green eyes sparkling. It was an expression that went well with his face, Cissie decided. He was older than her, around middle age, but he was still very handsome—not that she actually looked at guys that much older than her, though.

“Please,” Cissie responded gratefully.

With no hesitation, the man reached out and easily took the box from her, and Cissie opened the door for him.

“Would you mind holding this?” she asked, gesturing to the door.

The man obediently leaned against it, allowing Cissie to grab a box of her own and walk inside.

“This way,” the man said as he joined her, and then led her to an enormous room that was positively with brimming with food. With its mountains of boxed pasta, towers of cans, and piles of various packages, it put even the grandest supermarket to shame.

“Wow,” Cissie breathed, turning to take it all in. Seeing the overwhelming generosity from all sorts of Star City’s citizens, she couldn’t help but feel humbled.

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” the blond man said with a proud grin. He began walking back to the exit. “Here, let’s bring in those other few boxes.”

Together, they made short work of moving the remaining donations, and Cissie made sure to thank him when they’d finished.

“Thanks, I really appreciate your help,” she said as she set down her final parcel.

“Don’t mention it,” the man told her easily. “If all I have to do to get this amount of donations here is haul a few boxes, I’ll do it every day, twice a day.” He surveyed the room in wonder. “You know, a school that’s barely even in Star City donated five thousand pounds of food.” He let out a chuckle of amazement. “Would you believe it? Five thousand! And to think that us old folks keep on complaining that kids today are lazy and self-centered.”

“Oh, hey, that was my school!” Cissie enthused, pointing to the embroidered crest on the blazer of her school uniform. “Saint Elias School for Girls, that’s us!”

The blond man looked surprised, his eyebrows shooting up, but right at that moment, Mrs. Tanaka strode through the door.

“Oh, there you are, Cissie—” she began, but when her eyes landed on the blond man, she instantly did a double-take. “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Mayor! Hello!”

“ ‘Mayor’?” Cissie repeated quizzically. For the first time, she noticed that the man was dressed in pressed trousers, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and gleaming black loafers—not exactly clothing typical for a day of heavy lifting.

The blond man gave them both a personable smile and extended a hand. “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. Oliver Queen, mayor of Star City, at your service.”

“How do you do?” Mrs. Tanaka was still clearly flustered, but still accepted his hand. “I’m Kasumi Tanaka, and this—” she gave a frazzled type of wave at Cissie, “—is my student, Cissie King-Jones.”

“Wonderful to meet you both,” Mayor Queen said warmly, shaking Mrs. Tanaka’s hand and then Cissie. “I was just hearing about your school’s generosity for the holiday.”

Mrs. Tanaka recovered slightly, seemingly more composed now that they were talking about subject very familiar to her. “Yes, that was actually arranged by Cissie and I,” she said. “I’m the faculty advisor of the Community Outreach Club, and Cissie is the president. We organized the food drive as one of our projects, and the students more than rose to the task.”

“I’ll say,” Mayor Queen replied. “Thank you for all that you did to help the city today. We deeply appreciate your help. You should feel very proud of yourselves and your school.” He looked at Cisse and then Mrs. Tanaka. “It’s very inspiring to not only see a young person taking an interest and active role in civic matter, but also that she has the guidance of an educator to rely on. Thank you both again for spending such a great deal of your time to ensure others won’t go hungry.”

Reflexively opening her mouth to reply, Cissie was struck by an odd feeling. It wasn’t the pride for Elias from earlier or the embarrassment of Mrs. Tanaka’s praise. Instead, it was a strange, hollow sensation that was almost akin to dread, but she couldn’t name the emotion or the reason it was slowly creeping over her.

“You’re very kind,” she managed.

“No, you’re the kind one,” Mayor Queen said wholeheartedly. “You’re doing a great job. You’re making a difference. And you deserve credit for that.”

Cissie nodded but suddenly couldn’t dredge up the energy for a proper response. She felt pathetically grateful when Mrs. Tanaka said their goodbye to the mayor.

“I hate to rush off, but Cissie needs to get back to school,” she said apologetically. “But thank you very much for speaking with us, Mr. Mayor. We’re so flattered that you took the time to notice what we’re doing.”

“It’s my responsibility to when my citizens need help and to encourage the ones who take the time to help them,” Mayor Queen responded. He gave them another smile. “Have a wonderful holiday, both of you. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Goodbye. Happy Thanksgiving.” Cissie tried to return his smile, but she felt like the world’s biggest liar as she walked away. The feeling continued as she exchanged farewells with Mrs. Tanaka and joined the basketball team aboard their bus.

It was because she was a liar, Cissie realized, slumping down in her seat and pressing her forehead against the glass. She was a fraud, and all of her community service was a sham. It was like when Bonnie had been pushing her into superheroics—Bonnie hadn’t cared about Cissie helping people, she’d only cared about Cissie receiving press for it.

There was a sudden weight on the seat beside her, and upon turning, Cissie realized that Jean had switched seat to sit next to her.

“Hi,” Jean said softly, looking at her with obvious concern. “You okay? You look . . .” she trailed off, considering Cissie. “Upset,” she finished eventually.

Cissie did her best to smile and shrug. “Just tired,” she lied. “Organizing that food drive was a lot of work. I’m looking forward to relaxing over break.”

Jean nodded, and while Cissie didn’t think she bought the excuse, she seemed to recognize that Cissie wanted to be left alone, and only gave a light touch to Cissie’s hand as she turned in her seat to talk to some of her teammates.

Left to her own devices, Cissie found herself brooding. As much as she had tried to avoid being like Bonnie, she supposed her mother must have rubbed off on her more than she’d recognized. Because Cissie didn’t care about anything Mayor Queen had talked about. She hadn’t been thinking of helping people, not with the food drive or with the Christmas party or even with the Community Outreach Club at all. The only reason she’d joined was so she would have something to occupy her time, something to define herself by, and the only reason she’d made as much of an effort as she did was so she didn’t have time to think. Just like Bonnie had used Cissie for attention, Cissie had used people so that she wouldn’t have to worry about her biological father.

 _Her father._ She’d known for almost two months now that Green Arrow was her father, but she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told anyone. She couldn’t even decide if she even wanted to or not. Sometimes she yearned to call her friends and spill the truth. And she still couldn’t get that fantasy out of her head of running through Star City’s streets at night until she found him and told him that she was his daughter. And still other times, she was sure both were absolutely horrendous ideas.

When the bus arrived back at the Elias School, the other students rushed off, whooping and chattering excitedly with their friends. Thanksgiving break officially started at the end of the day; in only a few minutes, most of the other students would be going home and spending the next for days with their families.

Cissie was not one of them and would instead remain at the school for the holiday. With no family to go to since the final custody ruling declared that she was to have no contact with her mother until she turned eighteen, she’d be spending the day alone.

 _You could have someone to spend it with,_ a traitor voice in her head told her. _You could be seeing Green Arrow. If only you’d been more brave._

 _Enough._ Cissie tried to block out the voice as she trudged along behind her classmates, the gap between them widening as they hurried back into the building to make their way to the dormitories and she made no effort to increase her pace. She couldn’t help but notice the cars that were lining the drive. Some were parents there to pick up their daughters to bring them home for the holiday, while others were shuttle vans to bring students to Star City’s airport and catch a flight from there.

Jean was waiting for her just outside the entryway, shivering slightly in the cold, but she still smiled at Cissie hopefully.

“Hey,” she greeted Cissie in a tone that was deliberately cheerful. “Thought I’d wait to walk in with you.”

Even in spite of her melancholy, Cissie couldn’t help but return the smile, touched by her friend’s thoughtfulness. “Thanks, Jean.”

The final bell rang just as they made their way past the lobby, resulting in a veritable stampede crushing around her as Cissie returned to the sophomore dorm. They were stuck dodging the flurry of students hauling duffel bags and roller suitcases, and Cissie decided to say her goodbye then.

“Well, take care, Jean,” she told her, doing her best to dredge up enough energy to be sincere. “I hope you have a nice break.”

“Why don’t you come downstairs with me?” Jean offered. “Paige, Anna Marie, Katy, and I were all going to take a few pictures together before going home. Mostly so we can show our elderly relatives when they try to talk to us about school,” she added.

Cissie appreciated the offer, but she really didn’t want to be reminded that everyone else had school had a home to go to but her.

“Thanks,” she told Jean. “But I’m really not up to it. I’m going to go lay down. Take care.”

Jean hesitated, looking like she wanted to try harder to convince her, but then seemed to realize it would be a futile effort. “You, too, Cissie. Text me if you need anything.”

Cissie smiled and nodded and then turned and walked away.

She made her way to her room, again not bothering with the lights. Instead, she simply kicked off her shoes and lay on her bed, listening to the excitement and laughter of her classmates as they said they goodbyes and made their exits to go off and see their families. Doors swung open and shut, students shouted to one another and ran up and down the stairs, girls dragged along luggage and exclaimed warnings or apologies for it.

The entire process sounded like absolute pandemonium, and in that moment, Cissie absolutely ached to be a part of it.

As the din gradually faded and then the last door closed and a solitary pair of footsteps walked down the stairs, creating a lonely echo throughout the halls, she found herself wondering what Green Arrow was doing for the holiday. Did he have a family? He’d a had a sidekick (or two?) at one point, hadn’t he? Maybe they kept up with each other and took turns visiting the other for celebrations. Or maybe he was like her and wished he could be spending the day with someone.

Or maybe he was spending the holiday with that blonde woman in the leather jacket Cissie had seen him with a few months back and wasn’t wishing for anything at all.

Her melancholy continued when she went to sleep that night, resulting in one of the most bizarre dreams she could remember. Mayor Queen had her on trial for using the food bank as a front for cheating at frisbee golf, and Kon was the star witness who testified that she had been cleaning up highways like a convicted criminal before being accused, and, therefore, she must be guilty now. The prosecuting attorney was the leather-jacketed blonde, and she produced the bloody gauze Cissie had stolen and claimed it had been forgotten at the bell tower during one of the times when she had broken school curfew to go out patrolling. At the end of it all, a dozen Green Arrows showed up in the courtroom to execute Cissie via bow and arrow firing squad.  


	4. Chapter 4

When classes resumed after Thanksgiving, Cissie still hadn’t pulled herself out of her slump. She tried to concentrate on the upcoming charity Christmas party, but she couldn’t find the same energy that she’d been driven by before. Instead, she just felt like a fraud who only pretended to care about helping people so she could get the glory—the kind of person she’d worried Bonnie would eventually turn her into.   

Bitter cold and heavy snow set in, and the frisbee golf club was indefinitely suspended until warmer weather resumed.

“How are we supposed to meet cute guys now?” Katy asked despairingly, pressing her face against the glass of the window as they instead met in library to study.

“Let’s face it,” Anna Marie said glumly. “It’s not like we met any cute guys at the park. Looks like we’re going to have wait until the spring dance.” She sighed, idly adjusting the black widow hair clip she was wearing. “Or until you need me to flirt with another guy so you can steal their golf cart, I guess.”

Misery loved company, and Cissie couldn’t help but feel glad that other people were also unhappy right along with her. “Love is hard found, isn’t it?”

“Who cares about love?” Anna Marie asked gloomily. “I just wanted a hot dude that I could bring home for Christmas one year and rub it in my bitch mom’s face.”

In spite of herself, Cisse found herself struggling to hold back a grin. At least she wasn’t alone when it came to having issues with her mother.

While there had been a New York City trip planned by the bio club for the first weekend of December, nearly a foot of snow made sure it was cancelled, much to the outrage and disappointment of its other members.

“I was going to do all my Christmas shopping there!” Paige wailed. “I already bragged to all my brothers and sisters about the cool gifts I was going to get them! What am I supposed to do now?”

Jean patted her arm consolingly. “I’m sure you could find them something that’s, er, _interesting_ enough in Bear Creek Crossing,” she said, trying to comfort her.

“Like what?” Paige moaned. “A banjo and washboard? This town doesn’t even have a cell phone tower!”

While she understood Paige’s disappointment, Cissie actually didn’t mind the cancellation. She felt too sad and worn out to be looking forward to the trip, and its cancellation gave her time to finish up a few long-term class assignments that were due before Christmas break began. Instead of going to bed early on Friday in preparation for the trip, she worked late into the night, starting slowly at first but then finding herself becoming invested in, well, anything since that day at the food bank. After managing to catch some sleep for a few hours, she found herself waking up early on Saturday morning, going to the cafeteria to force down some food, and then working in the library and managing to finish everything before lunch. At first she was proud that she’d accomplished her goal, but as she gathered up her books and began the walk back to the dorm, she realized she had nothing else to occupy her day.

Nothing but thoughts about that DNA test that remained in her desk, waiting for her to reach a decision about it.

Cissie heaved a sigh as she began her descent of the stairs, wishing she didn’t have to think about it. But when she tried to distract herself, she just ended up noticing the evergreen garlands and twinkling lights that had been woven around the bannister, and then as she went to exit, she faced with elaborate wreaths on both of the double doors.

Bonnie had never decorated for Christmas. No tree, no carols, nothing but upgraded archery equipment as presents. She’d barely bothered with the holiday at all—she’d considered it a distraction from Cissie’s training.

Cissie stepped outside, briefly shielding her eyes as the rays of bright sunlight reflecting off of the snow hit her full force. The snowstorm had ended, leaving a blue sky with a bright sun, and the temperature had risen slightly. The school walkways had now been plowed, so it wouldn’t even be unpleasant trek back to the dorm. She could see various handymen all around campus—some were finishing shoveling snow, but most of them were stringing up decorations on campus buildings or hanging festive banners from the walkway streetlights.

 _What did Green Arrow do for Christmas?_ Cissie couldn’t help but wonder about her father yet again. Was he the kind of guy to put on an ugly Christmas sweater and bake cookies for all his friends and neighbors? Maybe he and that blonde woman went somewhere warm and tropical together. Or maybe he visited family, or they came to visit him?

 _Family._ The idea made Cissie stop dead in her tracks.

She’d never had any kind of extended family before. Bowstring and Bonnie had both been only children, so there were no aunts or uncles or cousins. His parents had died young, as had Bonnie’s father. Bonnie hadn’t been in any kind of contact with her mother, Millie, and the woman had died years ago without ever meeting Cissie. Bonnie hadn’t let her.

But maybe Green Arrow had a family. Maybe a family that would want to meet Cissie even if Green Arrow wanted nothing to do with her. Maybe she could still have a family without Bonnie, and if needed, without him.

The thought filled her with such unexpected joy that when a figure suddenly swooped down from the sky and lifted her into the air at lightning speed, it took looking directly into Kon’s bright blue eyes for her to realize it wasn’t just a sudden sensation of buoyancy.

“Kid!” she exclaimed giddily, a rush of adrenaline zipping through her as they zoomed up into the sky.

“ _Buenos dias_ , Ciss! Thought we’d kidnap you from St. Trinian’s for a while!” he said, twirling her around mid-air. “Whaddya say to a snow day with all of us? We’ve got the Kent farm to ourselves right now—Ma and Pa are visiting Metropolis for weekend.”

A happy laugh escaped Cissie’s throat, and in that moment she became aware of how sorely she’d missed being around Kon—how deeply she’d missed all of her friends. Spending the day with them and no heroics on the table was something she would have given anything for, and to have it freely offered was like a soothing balm to the most painful of wounds.

“I’d love that,” she replied with a wide smile, looking Kon directly in the eyes. “Whisk me over to the dorms so I can get my hat and gloves and scarf.”

Kon gave a raucous grin. “I get to come into an all-girls dormitory with you?”

Cissie smacked his arm lightly. “No, you get to wait outside.”

Once back at the dorms, it didn’t take long at all to switch the wool trench coat she’d been wearing to a more substantial waterproof parka. And after wrapping a scarf around her neck, clipping on her trapper cap, and pulling on her gloves, she ran back outside, where Kon promptly grabbed her and sped over to Smallville.

No sooner had her feet touched down on the ground on the Kent farm than did Cissie find herself being bombarded with several snowballs all in a row. But in the next instant, a pair of arms wrapped around her, squeezing her ribs and back tightly.

“Heya Cissie!” Bart said brightly, pulling back to grin at her. “How’s life in the rocks?”

“The sticks,” Kon corrected him. “She lives in the sticks.” He turned to Cissie. “Yeah, I flew over that town where your school is about three times before I even realized it was there.”

There was a scoff from behind them; Cassie, Anita, and Robin were approaching from the farmhouse.

“Really, Kon, considering it’s a girls-only boarding school, I would have thought you’d memorized the coordinates,” Anita ribbed him.

“Hmph.” Kon put an arm around her shoulders and Cissie’s. “Who needs those girls when I’ve already got lovely ladies such as yourselves right here?”

So Kon was still totally oblivious to Cassie’s affections for him. He’d probably remain that way until Cassie spelled it out for him. Cissie threw her friend an apologetic glance, but Cassie’s only response was to shrug and then hammer Kon directly in the face with a snowball, which brought all of them, even Robin, to burst out laughing as Kon sputtered and wiped at his face.

“Forget lovely,” Cassie declared. “Today, we are ladies of war. Let the snowball fight commence!”

“Girls vs. boys?” Bart asked excitedly, buzzing around them so fast they couldn’t even see him.

Cassie put her hands on her hips, tilting up her chin at the challenge. “Why not? Wonder Woman has been training me in ground battle tactics.” She glanced at Cissie and Anita. “I’m sure I can whip these two into shape in no time.”

“You’re on,” Robin said, a small smile playing on his lips as he brought in Kon and Bart for a conspiratorial huddle.

* * *

 

At the end of the day, none of them were able to tell who’d won and who’d lost the snowball battle, and frankly, Cissie couldn’t have cared less either way. As the daylight faded and they straggled back to the farmhouse, bedraggled, soaked from snow and slush, and weary but chattering happily, arm in arm with each other, she was just glad to be back with her friends again.

Kon didn’t waste any time in passing out blankets when they got back inside, and as Anita and Cassie stepped away to change, Cissie realized then that the others had been perceptive enough to bring a change of clothes with them (or in Robin’s case, a change of uniform). Just as she was mentally sighing at her own lack of foresight, Kon directed her upstairs.

“In the guest room—first door on the left, just check to see if there are creepy-looking geese on the wallpaper and that’ll be it—we keep a boatload of spare clothes for guys and gals. All kinds of sizes. See if you can find anything that fits you,” Kon told her.

While grateful, Cissie raised an eyebrow. “The Kents just keep a room full of random clothes?”

“Eh, what can I say?” Kon shrugged, vanished for a moment, and then returned within the blink of an eye, holding a gallon of apple cider. “They’ve got a habit of taking in strays.”

Following Kon’s instructions, Cissie went upstairs and was able to locate a pair of jeans, a soft white long-sleeved T-shirt, a beautiful peach-colored sweater that looked handmade, and even a pack of thick new socks and a pair of cozy slippers. As she hurried to shed her cold, damp clothing and dress again in the warm outfit, she felt a fierce sadness rising within her, completely at odds with how she’d been feeling just moments ago, and it wasn’t until she was exiting the room that she could recognize it: regret.  

Sometimes, Cissie admitted to herself as she went back downstairs, it was tempting to go back to working with the team, and she had to fight tooth and nail against the urge, remind herself of the reason for her decisions. And usually her sense of login won.

But as she stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching as Kon zipped from lighting up a fire in the fireplace of the living room to making hot cocoa on the stovetop and Bart disappeared and then reappeared with a stack pizzas in the blink of an eye, she found herself needing to swallow an almost overpowering sense of longing.

She missed this life. She’d given it up for a good reason, and she wouldn’t be returning to it, but she truly missed it, and she missed seeing her friends regularly. She missed being able to talk about her life with them and be honest—they were the first people (other than Child Protective Services and the court) she’d ever told about Bonnie’s mistreatment of her. She could still could recall what a relief it had been for someone else to know, for them all to comment on how screwed up Bonnie’s parenting had been. That moment, when she’d become aware that she had people her own age, on her side, who cared about her, who tried to comfort her—that was the first time in her life she’d ever made friends with _anyone._  

And then, because of her own mistakes, because of her own anger, she’d had to part with them. Her split-second decision after Marcey’s murder had irreversibly altered her life and created a distance between them that she would never be able to bridge.

Trying to take a deep breath to calm herself, Cissie was startled to find herself letting out a shuddering gasp, and to her mortification, she found tears beginning to slip down her cheeks. Unwilling to be caught crying, she hastened to the front door and slipped outside, grateful when the cold air blasted at her overly warm face.

Rarely ever did Cissie cry. She’d learned at an early age not to waste her breath. Bonnie had never had any patience for tears and had always reacted by either ignoring Cissie entirely or tossing off a variety of disinterested and disdainful remarks.

 _“You think that hurts?”_ Bonnie had asked scornfully once when she’d mistakenly shut the car door on three of seven-year-old Cissie’s fingers. _“Wait until the first time a supervillain catches you and tortures you. You think the Joker is going to stop hurting you just because you’re crying? You’ll just make him want to hurt you more. He’d be more likely to let you go if you didn’t react.”_

Now, Cissie clamped her eyes shut in a desperate attempt to stave off the tears but nonetheless felt the moisture dripping down her face before it was stolen away by the wind. Opening them again, she tried to concentrate on anything else but her own sadness, trying instead to look at the fading threads of pink and gold light off in the western sky, or the snow Taj Mahal, complete with a snow Emperor and Empress in front, that Kon and Bart had constructed. But it was useless; her vision just blurred again and again with more tears.

Out there on the Kents’ porch, Cissie suddenly felt more alone than she’d been in her entire life. More alone than she’d ever been during all the years Bonnie had kept her shut away in the house except for superheroics, more alone than she’d been over Thanksgiving break. The happy camaraderie inside the farmhouse felt like something that wasn’t hers any longer—she could visit, sure, but in the end, it was something she’d have to leave over and over.

It was always something she’d have to say goodbye to.

Another gust of wind howled, the temperate weather of the day giving in to the chill of the night, and Cissie shivered. But no sooner did she do so than was a heavy afghan draped around her shoulders, and a gloved hand came to rest over top of it.

Glancing over, Cissie found that Robin had joined her. The physical contact from him caught her off-guard; out of all of them, he was the least emotive, not prone to touches or many displays of affection.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice unusually gentle. “I saw you come out here. I thought I’d let you have a few minutes to yourself, but when you didn’t come back inside . . .” he trailed off, as if uncertain how to explain that he’d been worried about her.

 _I’m fine,_ Cissie wanted to tell him, but when she opened her mouth to speak, a strangled sob burst out instead and more tears gushed down her cheeks. Thoroughly embarrassed at what she was sure must be an utterly pathetic display, she tried to turn away from him, but to her eternal shock, she found him instead pulling her forward into a fierce embrace and holding her tightly.

And she only hesitated a moment before hugging him right back, burying her face into his neck in a futile attempt to stem the flow of her tears.

For several minutes they remained that way, the wind whipping around them as they pressed closely together, able to feel each other’s body heat through their clothing.

Eventually, Robin did speak. “What’s wrong?” he asked her quietly, still not moving away from her, the warmth of his breath tickling her neck as he spoke.

Cissie’s breath hitched in her throat, not because of her sobs, but because of panic. She still wasn’t sure if she should reveal her secret, if she could endure the repercussions, but she desperately wanted to unshoulder this burden. She didn’t want to create even more distance between herself and her friends.

So she swallowed several times, trying to make sure her voice would be steady when she spoke. “It’s my father.”

This time Robin did pull away, and as she straightened, Cissie could tell that he was frowning quizzically beneath his mask. “Your father? Cissie, your father . . . your father is _dead_.”

Shaking her head, Cissie used the sweater sleeve to wipe at her eyes. “No. Bowstring Jones is dead—and God help the poor bastard, because I wouldn’t put it past Bonnie to have lied to him about it, too—but he wasn’t my father.” She looked at Tim directly. “I got a DNA test. Green Arrow is my actual dad.”

Robin froze at her statement, and it was the first time Cissie could recall ever seeing him truly shocked. She might have laughed at his reaction if it had been due to anything else, at being able to stop her normally unflappable friend dead in his tracks, but now it was all she could do to watch him in trepidation. Time seemed to slow down as she did, and she could only stand there, her heart thudding in her chest as she awaited his reaction.

Within moments he regained his composure and then gently put an arm around Cissie’s shoulders, leading her to the door.

“Come on,” he said kindly. “I think we’d better talk about this inside.”

Cissie nodded, ready to take some of the weight off of her shoulders. “Yeah, I have a few things to tell you guys.”


	5. Chapter 5

Robin guided her to the living room to sit by the fire. On the way, Bart swapped out the blanket on Cissie’s shoulders for a different one that was toasty warm, and Anita pushed a large mug of hot chocolate into her hands. When Cissie sat down on the stone hearth, Robin remained beside her and Cassie came to sit on her other side, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, the two of them flanking her like guardian angels.

Kon placed a platter of cookies before Cissie as he, Anita, and Bart settled around her as well. “So,” he said, curiosity and worry mixing on his face, “why don’t you tell us about it?”

Cissie looked down into her cocoa mug, in which someone (likely Bart) had sprinkled little bits of pieces of crushed candy cane. “Truth be told, there’s not much to say. My mom made a sarcastic comment one time that made me suspicious. Then back in August, during the confusion after Grodd’s attack on Keystone, I stole some dressing that had been used for Green Arrow’s injuries. I had had it tested at a lab in comparison to some my own blood. The results came back positive, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it ever since.”

“Green Arrow?” Cassie reeled back in shock, her blue eyes blown wide. “Holy Hera! I mean, what are the chances?”

“Pretty good if her mom was that much of a freak for archery,” Kon replied. He looked gobsmacked by the news, but not enough, evidently, to be unable to form a snappy comeback. “I guess she was a groupie, too, then.”

 _“Kon,”_ Robin ground out between gritted teeth at him.

Kon held up his hands. “What? _What?_ It’s true!”

Bart glanced around, looking confused. “I don’t get it. Why didn’t you know before? Why is it such a surprise?”

Rolling his eyes, Kon let out a deeply aggrieved sigh. “Okay, bro, breath through your nose and listen real closely. Cisskabob’s mom lied to her and let her think some dead dude was her dad even though he wasn’t. Meanwhile, this other dude—that’s Green Arrow—is her dad. Cissie didn’t know, and he might not know, either.”

Bart frowned quizzically. “Yeah, but _why_ didn’t she know? In when I’m from, you need DNA codes for almost everything to prove who you are.” He turned to Cissie. “So you should have been able to see your DNA code and compare to not-your-dad dude’s DNA code and then find out—”

“Not-her-dad dude died when she was _five,_ Bart,” Cassie interjected. _“Five._ She would have been too young for that. And besides, we don’t have that kind of DNA code security or whatever.”   

“Oh.” Bart got that bemused, unimpressed look on his face whenever he was reminded of how low tech the twenty-first century was in comparison to his time period in the thirtieth century.

Anita was clearly trying to remain logical. “Does your mom know about you finding out?” she asked Cissie.

“Heh.” Cissie found her lips upturning in the briefest of smiles. “I’m not that much of a masochist.”

“Why not just tell Green Arrow?” Bart suggested. “I mean, he’s your dad, right?”

Cissie sighed. “It’s not that simple. Maybe he does know about me. Maybe he just doesn’t want me. And even if he didn’t know about being my dad, who’s to say he would want anything to do with me?”

Bart shrugged. “When Max’s daughter Helen found out that he was her dad and wanted to get to know him, he was all for it.” He paused. “At least, I think. I didn’t pay that much attention."

“Yeah, I’m not even Superman’s son, but he still invited me to live here with the Kents,” Kon chimed in.

“I . . .” Kon and Bart’s words touched on one of Cissie’s deepest anxieties about the revelation, and she continued to stare in her cocoa mug. “I don’t really want to take the risk,” she admitted, still not looking at one of them. “I mean, you all know my mom. You know what a psycho she is. If my dad turns out to be some deadbeat, especially if he knowingly left me with her, I’m not sure I could handle it. Maybe it makes me a coward, but I’d rather never know.”

“You’re not a coward,” Cassie said adamantly, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

“Aren’t I?” All of the sudden, Cissie felt weariness flooding through her, dragging her down, and she finally raised her head to look at her friends, knowing her exhaustion was showing plainly on her face. “I’ve been battling with myself for months. Struggling with the urge to track him down and tell him. This Thanksgiving, I spent the whole time wondering where he was or what he was doing, if he was alone like me. And _goddammit_ —” she had to swallow to push back more tears,  “—I want to tell him. I really, really do. But I haven’t, because I’m terrified he’ll reject me. I’m terrified that it’s my lot in life to end up with both of my parents being selfish jackasses who care only about themselves and don’t give a damn about me. And I’ve been hiding behind all kinds of charity projects in that community service club I’ve been telling you about, acting as if I care about other people when I can’t stop thinking about Green Arrow. So the truth is, I’m selfish, too. I don’t honestly give a damn about helping people—I just wanted something to keep my mind off my own problems.”

Only stunned silence greeted her rant as her friends stared back at her in surprise, and Cissie seconds away from burying her face in her hands in shame and embarrassment when Cassie spoke.

“I didn’t know you’d spent Thanksgiving alone,” she said, and to Cissie’s ears, her tone sounded . . . guilty?

“Did you really?” Bart questioned Cissie, wide-eyed. “Wally wouldn’t shut up about what an important day for family it was.”

“Well,” Cissie stalled, trying to regain some of her poise, “I sure as hell wasn’t going to be spending it with my mom.”

Cassie shook her head. “No, I mean I would have invited you to spend it with my family instead. I mean, it’s only me, my mom, and my grandparents. And my grandpa is kinda racist and my grandma is always on my mom’s case about me being such a tomboy, but if I’d have known, I wouldn’t have left you to stay alone at your school.”

“Yeah, yeah, me, neither,” Kon said earnestly. “You could have spent it here with us Kents. Hell, you can spend Christmas here with us if you want to.”

“You could have hung out with me on Thanksgiving instead,” Bart added. “Would have been a better time, anyway. I had to put up with a bunch of boring adults who just wanted to tell me I had bad manners. Like it was my fault that Wally made the turkey as dry as sawdust. So if you want to hang out this Christmas—” he stopped for a moment, seemingly thinking. “Hey, Christmas. Be right back.” He abruptly vanished from sight.

“If we’re all offering you a place to spend the holidays, you should know that my place is always open to you, too,” Anita told Cissie with a smile. “I mean, I know you and my dad never exactly got along whenever you crossed paths, but I have a huge extended family, so no one would mind if one more person was there.”

“None of us want you to get stuck being alone for Christmas,” Robin said firmly, laying a hand on Cissie’s arm.

In an instant, Bart had returned to the room, skidding to a halt on his knees right in front of Cissie. “She won’t have to be,” he declared. He handed Cissie a fancy card of flowing gold script on a red background. “This is an invitation to Jay and Joan’s Christmas party. They said they have it every year on Christmas Eve. I thought I had already invited you,” he added sheepishly. “But I must have forgot.”

Somewhat taken aback, Cissie stared at the card and then at Bart, touched beyond words by her friend’s thoughtfulness. Never in her life had she been invited to a Christmas party before. “Thank you, Bart,” she managed eventually, and then impulsively leaned in to give Bart a light peck on the cheek.

Bart just sent her a perplexed look, tilting his head like he didn’t know quite what to think about the kiss, but then he seemed to shake it off. “Let me know if you want to stay with us for Christmas. I don’t think Max would mind as long as I let you share my room,” he added, which brought Cassie to snort in disbelief.

“Again, same for me, right up to the sharing a room bit,” Kon said with a smirk, but then he turned serious. “I think you’re wrong, though, about you being selfish about that community service stuff. So you felt upset and you decided to help people instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself. What’s selfish about that?”

Cissie shrugged, feeling uncomfortable with the attention to this particular issue. “But I’m not exactly acting out of goodwill, you know? It’s something I use to distract myself. Who knows if I would even be doing it if it wasn’t for me finding out who my dad really was?” She picked at the blanket, finding herself unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. “I’m using people,” she confessed. “I’m using other people’s problems to feel better about my own.”

“Cissie. Look at me.” Robin’s voice was quiet, but Cissie knew him well enough to recognize when he was about to say something important, and she met his gaze without hesitation even in spite of her uneasiness.

He looked at her steadily from beneath his mask. “I’ve been Batman’s sidekick for some time now. I know all of his rogues. And I don’t if you know this, but most of them got started into villainy because of some kind of personal tragedy or trauma that led them there. But once it got them to that point . . .” His voice took on an edge. “They did the rest to themselves. They made their own choices. Ultimately, it came down to them getting hurt and then them deciding to hurt others in response—usually hurting people who had nothing to do with it. They made the choice to hurt and kill innocents for revenge. And then they kept on doing it. _That’s_ what selfishness is.”

“He’s right,” Anita agreed. “I mean, it’s practically a requirement for villains to have some kind of awful thing happen to them and then for them to decide that they’re going to be evil because of it. That it’s okay for them to be evil because of it.”

“But that’s not you,” Robin said determinedly, still looking at Cissie. “You said it yourself. You felt hurt. You felt conflicted. But what did you do? You decided to use your own pain to make other people’s lives better. You decided to use it to make your town a better place to live. All right, maybe your intentions weren’t one hundred percent pure. But do you think that matters to the families who actually had a Thanksgiving dinner to eat thanks to your food drive? To the underprivileged kids you and your school are throwing that Christmas party and collecting toys for? What matters to them, Ciss, is that someone took the time to help them out and care about them when they desperately needed it. What matters is that you had a choice between doing good or not, but that instead of deciding that your pain entitled you to hurt other people, or even just wallowing in self-pity, you went with the option of helping people. Maybe a part of that was for yourself, but in the grand scheme of things, you had the desire to do good, and you went forward and made good things happen.”

“Yeah, for real,” Kon chimed in. “I mean, part of the reason I like being Superboy is because of the hot chicks I get to meet. It’s not the whole reason, but it’s part of the reason. But if I’m in Hawaii to judge a bikini contest and a volcano starts erupting, and I stop the volcano from erupting partially because I don’t want anyone to get hurt and also because I want the contest to continue, it’s still a good thing. A not-erupting volcano is a not-erupting volcano even if I really do want to see babes in bikinis.”

Anita groaned. “Kon. You are an absolute _moron_.”    

Kon looked offended. “What’d I say?”

“Ignore him and listen to Robin,” Cassie told Cissie. “He’s right about what you helping people. Because you _did_. You had the chance to help people, and you made sure that you did. It’s not your reasons that matter here, but the results.”

For a moment, Cissie didn’t respond; she was still trying to absorb what Robin had said to her.

She’d never considered his perspective. She’d never considered that she’d had a choice—it had just seemed natural to her. Instead, she’d been preoccupied with whether her motivations came from the right or wrong way of thinking, and from her point of view, they’d come from the wrong one. That there had been something wrong with her, something irreversibly warped from Bonnie’s selfishness, from Bonnie pushing her into heroics for the fame it would bring them.

But while his outlook caught her by surprise, it slowly dawned on her that it made sense, as did Cassie’s.

She’d managed to help, Cissie realized. Yeah, she’d felt like a fraud when Mayor Queen had praised her as highly as he did, but that didn’t change that she had helped. That didn’t change that she was still working to help with the Elias School’s charity Christmas party.

Robin’s words echoed in her mind: _You had the desire to do good, and you went forward and made good things happen._

Cissie _had_ done good. Even if she hadn’t always felt like it.

When she glanced at Robin again, he gave her an understanding smile. “Take the credit, Ciss. You deserve it.”

“And how,” Cassie declared stoutly, wrapping her arms around Cissie.

“Thank you,” Cissie said to her, an enormous sense of gratitude swelling within her. She turned to Robin, and this time, she was the one reaching out to him and giving his shoulder a squeeze. “And you.” A smile spreading over her face, she turned to Bart, Anita, and Kon, slipping off the hearth so she could pull them all into a hug. “And all of you.”

“You could give me a kiss, too,” Kon said hopefully. “Just like you gave Bart.”

When Cissie let go, Anita was the next to speak.

“I don’t mean to pry, Cissie,” she began hesitantly, “but what about your real dad? Are you going tell him? Have you made a decision?”

“You should tell him at the Christmas party,” Bart suggested before Cissie could respond. “He’ll be there. I just checked the ROTCs.”

“RSVPs,” Cassie corrected automatically. “And Bart, take it from another fifteen-year-old girl, this one who doesn’t know who her father is at all. If I did find out, the last place I’d want to confront him is at a crowded holiday party that’s supposed to be cheerful and fun for me.”

“Yeah, but if you had the perfect opportunity—” Bart argued, but Cissie interrupted him.

“I’m going to tell him,” she said decisively, surprising even herself. But as the words left her mouth, she was again reminded how much it was something she wanted, that one way or another, it was time to put the issue to rest.

She took a deep breath, steeling her resolve. “It’ll be my New Year’s resolution to tell him. And even if he does reject me, then at least I know. Even if he hurts me, at least I have an answer and can move on.”

“He won’t reject you,” Cassie said emphatically. “You’re an amazing girl, Ciss. I mean, you’re an Olympic gold medalist! He’d be an idiot to turn you away. But if that is the case, well.” She raised her chin. “Then he’ll have to deal with me.”

“And me,” Kon added fiercely.

“Count me in,” Anita agreed.

“I’d say ‘me, too,’ but I don’t think you’ll need it,” Robin told Cissie. “I’ve worked with Green Arrow several times. He can be a tad . . . soapbox-y, but he’s a good man. I honestly believe he’ll recognize you as his daughter once you tell him the truth.”

“Yeah, especially when you get just the chance!” Bart grinned at Cissie.

Cissie threw a wary glance his way, wondering if he had something planned, but was distracted by the chiming of a grandfather clock that sat in the corner of the room.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your advice, guys,” she said gratefully as she rose to her feet. “You can’t imagine how good it feels to tell people about this. I felt so stuck for so long and didn’t know what to do.”

Cassie rose as well, pulling Cissie into another hug. “Anytime. You might not be with Young Justice anymore, but you’re still my friend, and I’ll help you however I can.”

“That goes for all of us,” Kon declared, and as the rest of the team agreed, Cissie thought her heart might burst out of her chest.

“Thank you,” she said to all of them. She felt like she’d already said it a dozen times already that night, but it didn’t matter.

She really, truly did have the best friends.

After collecting her belongings and exchanging various goodbyes, Cissie made her way to the door alongside Robin, who’d be giving her a ride back to school. Just before she left, though, Bart caught her again.

“I almost forgot. The name of your secret Santa is inside your invitation,” he said, pointing at the card she held. “I think you got Joan’s name—she said that she and Jay always make sure to give out their names last.”

Cissie checked, and sure enough, the name _Joan Garrick_ was written in neat script at the bottom left corner of the invitation.

“I’ve never met Joan,” she admitted, looking at Bart. “What does she like?”

“Dunno.” Bart thought for a moment. “Um, she cooks. She cooked on Thanksgiving. Maybe she’d like something to cook with. Cooking stuff.”

“Man, you should be glad you have someone easy to shop for,” Kon told her. “I pulled Gar’s name. Gar! He’s the heir to a multibillion dollar company! What the hell could I buy for him that he doesn’t already have or could just buy for his own damn self if he felt like it?”

“Well, Wally told me that his dad keeps on going insane and trying to kill him. Maybe you could find him a new dad,” Bart said earnestly. He turned to Cissie. “I know you feel weird about Green Arrow being your father, but at least it’s not Steve Dayton.”

“The true Christmas miracle. I’ll keep that in mind,” Cissie said dryly before exiting alongside Robin.

For most of their walk to the Batwing hidden behind the barn, they didn’t speak. Instead, Cissie just admired the starlit winter landscape, amazed by how beautiful it looked with the pale light of the moon reflecting across the sheen of ice atop the blanket of snow.

“Gorgeous out here,” she murmured, her breath creating puffs of condensation as she spoke.

“It is,” Robin agreed with a soft smile.

Casting him a sidelong glance, Cissie wondered what information she could manage to pry out of him, if any, but decided to give it her best shot.

“So,” she began, raising her voice slightly to be heard over their footsteps crunching in the snow. “You said you knew my father. Do you, um, know anything about him?” Her heart began pounding again as anticipation speared through him; she’d be introducing herself to the man in only a few short weeks. She wanted to get it out of the way in January—give herself a fresh start to the new year, whatever Green Arrow’s reaction might be.

“I’ve only worked with him a few times in groups, and even then, only for a short while, never for any extended missions,” Robin admitted. “But Nightwing’s told me a few stories about him in passing. Apparently when he was in Seattle, he literally ran a gauntlet. It was for a gang, and he did it to earn their respect and prove that he wasn’t afraid of them, that he was the one in charge of the city. And around the same time he relocated there, a bunch of sexual predators—human traffickers, child molesters, serial rapists—started to turn up dead. Especially the ones that got off on a technicality.” Robin’s voice hardened. “Batman didn’t approve, of course. But I don’t think Green Arrow is the type of man to worry too much about other people’s approval, not even the other members of the Justice League.”

Cissie blinked. She’d never really considered what it would mean to have a superhero as a father, preferring to avoid the subject, but it had never even crossed her mind that Green Arrow was something of a renegade. Maybe he’d be more understanding of her past than she’d thought. “Wow. What else?”

“Well, he’s tangled with the CIA a few times over biochemical weapons—usually he’s the one to destroy them to prevent them from ever falling into the wrong hands,” Robin said as they rounded the corner and he unveiled the waiting jet. “And if I’m remembering right, Nightwing said he once led a revolt in an Appalachian town that was being virtually held hostage by a corrupt mining company. He’s very invested in rooting out corruption, from what I’ve heard, be it just exposing double-dealing landlords in Star City or preventing logging companies from infringing on Native American land rights.”

A fresh wave of hope flooded Cissie even as she warned herself against growing too optimistic. “He sounds like a pretty stellar guy, all in all,” she offered cautiously.

“Aside from the killing criminals part, I would say so. Ultimately, I think he’s a good man. I think he’ll do the right thing once you tell him.” Robin lifted the hatch on the Batwing and offered Cissie a hand inside. “I’m not going to tell you not to worry, because that would be idiotic of me. It’s only natural for you do worry. But I tend to trust my instincts, and I have a good feeling about how it’s going to work out for you.” He gave her a smile as she accepted his hand and climbed inside.

 _That’s one of us,_ Cissie responded silently, but didn’t want to speak out loud. She didn’t see a point in being negative when Robin was being so nice, so she changed the subject once she finished settling herself.

“Enough about Green Arrow. What about me?” she asked slyly, eyeing Robin knowingly as he hopped into the cockpit.

Robin looked back from where he’d been working on the controls. “What do you mean?”

Cissie smirked at him. “You mentioned the food drive my school helped with and the party we’re planning. You knew about the Christmas party because I invited all of you as special guests, but how did you know about the food drive?” She arched an eyebrow mischievously. “Robin . . . have you been checking up on me?”

It might have just been Cissie’s imagination, but she thought she saw Robin’s cheeks pinken slightly before he hastily swiveled back into his seat so he could arrange lift off.

“I’m not checking up on you,” he defended himself. “Just . . . monitoring you. Making sure that no supervillains have found out that you used to be Arrowette. I’m just making sure you’re safe.”

“Uh-huh,” Cissie remarked, deliberately putting on a dubious tone, and was rewarded by Robin tossing her an irritated glance just before the plane rocketed off into the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The specific actions of Green Arrow that Robin mentions take place in the O'Neil run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow and the Grell run on Green Arrow. Please feel free to ask if you have questions about any of the particulars mentioned.


	6. Chapter 6

The next few weeks were a mad dash for Cissie as she juggled schoolwork, the upcoming charity Christmas party, and preparations for the holidays, including buying presents for all of her friends and getting ready for the Garricks’ Christmas party. It was a whirlwind of school, shopping, and club meetings, but since that day at the Kent farm, Cissie had been bursting with energy, her spirit and determination renewed, and she found herself rising to the challenge. The days passed in a blur, and before she knew it, the night of the Community Outreach club’s party had arrived. It was held on December 20th, the last night before the Elias School let out for the holidays.  

While Cissie had been anticipating more of a night of hard work rather than fun, she was nonetheless dazzled that night when she and the other members of the Outreach CLub walked into Star City’s Dayton Industries. The building had been transformed into a winter wonderland, complete with elaborate stars and streamers strung from the ceiling and giant ornaments and candy canes placed all around. Christmas trees towered at the middle of the room and all four corners, glinting with lights and beautiful glass balls, while garlands and bows had been strung along each wall. An immense spread of food and candy had been set out on tables that ran along the far wall, with a large section of round tables with glistening poinsettia centerpieces were also there so that the partygoers could sit and eat.

Through the promise of being able to see the prestigious Dayton Industries executive ballroom,  she’d managed to shanghai Paige, Anna Marie, and Katy into joining herself, Jean and the other volunteers. They were suitably impressed by the sight.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Paige said in awe, turning slowly to take in every detail of the room. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Like something out of a movie,” Anna Marie enthused. She’d left off her dark eyeliner for the occasion and instead replaced it with red lipstick, a sure sign that she truly prized the holiday.

“Make sure you get something to eat sometime throughout the night,” Cissie told them, relaying the information Gar had given her. “All the volunteers are invited to partake in all of the refreshments.”

“I can’t wait!” Katy called, wandering over to tables piled with food. “Everything looks so good, and did you see this? Look, three types of butter, and all of it’s fancy—one had cinnamon in it, and another has cranberries!”

After getting a chance to explore at the ballroom had to offer, Cissie devoted herself arranging the volunteers. There were tables at the opposite side of the room, containing Christmas crafts and coloring to entertain the kids. Those tables would be the ones manned by the Elias students. And just beyond a pair of double doors that led outside to a elegant courtyard full of sparkling fairy lights that held live reindeer the children could visit. While there were animal handlers, Anna Marie and Katy were quick to volunteer to help out there as well.

“All those rowdy kids might upset the animals,” Anna Marie pointed out, stroking the nose of one of the reindeer affectionately. “We’ll help keep them in line.”

“We’ll save the reindeer!” Katy declared, throwing her arms around the neck of the nearest one, who promptly began nuzzling at her hair to see if it was edible.

The pièce de résistance was in the center of the room: an authentic wooden sleigh atop a platform covered in fake snow, surrounded by light-up reindeer. It was where the Young Justice team would do a meet-and-greet with each one of the kids and also give them their presents.

“Perfect for Christmas,” Cissie remarked happily as the rest of the club gazed around at the decorations in awe.

Mrs Tanaka smiled. “We certainly hit a patch of luck when that young man offered to help us out for tonight.”

Cissie’s mind flashed briefly to Robin, who’d helped put her in contact with Gar. “Maybe less luck than a helping hand to move things along,” she said fondly.

“Hey, looks great it here!” A familiar voice called, and Cissie turned to find Kon leading the team into the room. He waved at her with a grin. “Hiya, Cissie!”

Her pulse quickening as she realized Kon might expose her former identity, Cissie rushed over to him and began pumping his hand enthusiastically.

“Superboy! How nice to see you!” she exclaimed loudly to be sure that her classmates would. “It’s so flattering that you remembered my name!”

A quizzical expression on his face, Kon cocked his head and studied her, clearly flummoxed by her behavior.

“ _Secret identity_ ,” Cissie hissed lowly at him before continuing more loudly. “Yes, it’s so flattering that the entire Young Justice team could be here tonight and spend time with ordinary citizens like us!”

“Smooth,” Cassie muttered, snickering at Cissie’s performance.

Catching on, Kon raised his voice as well. “Yes, you are welcome, good, entirely ordinary citizen! We are so glad to be here! With you ordinary people! It’s great!”

Anita rolled her eyes. “Bro, you aren’t a robot.”

“In fact, why don’t we take this chance to meet more ordinary citizens?” Kon suggested, spotting the gaggle of girls that had formed several paces away, Paige amongst them, whispering and giggling with each other. “It’s part of our duty to care about our public, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know, actually,” Cissie hastened to state. “But you’re welcome to meet my classmates, Superboy—”

The words were barely out of her mouth before all the girls rushed over to her teammates to meet them, and Cissie grinned at their enthusiasm. It seemed right somehow—the old and the new parts of her life coming together with glee.

Introductions couldn’t last long, though. The kids began pouring in only a few minutes later, and then everyone needed to get to their positions. Since the ballroom area was very large and with so many components, Cissie and Jean took it upon themselves to act as managers for the night, checking in on each station periodically to see if anyone needed anything and to make sure there were no emergencies with any of the kids. Luckily, there were never any to be found beyond the occasional kid dousing themselves in glitter at the craft table, and she and Jean mostly found themselves running food for their classmates.

“Anything happening here?” Cissie asked, approaching Paige’s craft table, raising her voice to finally be heard over the flock of children crowding arounds, slapp sequins onto construction paper.

“Nothing but merry-making,” Paige replied good-naturedly, holding up an ornament of her own, a reindeer that consisted of entirely red sequins sprinkled with blue glitter.

Cissie laughed. “Very avant-garde. Do you need anything from the food table? Snacks, drinks, candy?”

“Oooh, some of those asiago cheese cubes if there are any left,” Paige requested. “They were delicious.”

After bringing Paige her cheese, Cissie next went to check on Anna Marie and Katy. They were still in the courtyard with the reindeer, but they no longer seemed as interested in the animals as they had initially. Instead, they were preoccupied with a couple of good-looking boys about their age, maybe a year or two older.

Katy was glad to make the introductions. “Cissie, this is Declan and Delaney,” she said happily, barely tearing her eyes away from Declan. “They brought their younger brother and sister here tonight because their parents are working. Which was very nice of them,” she added, winking at Delcan.

“Cissie was the one who organized tonight’s party,” Anna Marie told Delaney, trying for a casual tone as she twirled a strand of hair around one finger and leaned slightly closer to him. “In fact, she’s the once who convinced us to come along.”

“Well, then, you must be full of good ideas,” Delaney said warmly to Cissie, bringing Anna Marie and Katy to trade excited glances.

Declan called his siblings over from where one of the animal handlers was helping them pet a reindeer. “Riona, Conall, come over here.”

A little boy who was maybe eight and a little girl slightly younger obediently trotted over, and Delcan pointed at Cissie.

“This is the lady who planned this party and invited you,” he told them with a smile. “What do you say to her?”

“Thank you,” the children choused.

Cissie got down on one knee so she could speak to them face to face. “No, thank you for coming,” she told them sincerely. “There wouldn’t be much of a party without any guests, now, would it?”

The little boy shook his head. “No.”

“Uh-uh,” the little girl said, looking at Cissie with wide eyes, and then she threw her arms around Cissie in a hug. “Thank you for the party.”

The little boy followed his sister’s lead and joined the hug as well, and Cissie found herself swallowing a sudden lump in her throat as it finally fully dawned on her what the party had meant to these kids: that for one night, they got to have Christmas like any other kid, even if they didn’t have it on Christmas Day. She would have loved to have had any kind of Christmas when she was young, but she never had. So she was glad to make sure Christmas could come true for those who needed it now, even if it was just this once.

She hugged them both tightly in response. “You’re very welcome.”

The night ended up more successful than Cissie ever could have dreamed. With the efforts of the club combined with the staff Gar had lent them for the evening, not a single child out of the two hundred that attended the party was left wanting. Not only did each of them receive a toy donated by the Elias School, but Gar had arranged for Dayton Industries to provide another three toys per child for the parents to take home and put under the tree for Christmas Day so they could pretend that Santa had left them. He’d also arranged for a new set of cold weather gear to be given to each child, so they’d have new coats, gloves, scarves, hats, and boots to wear when out playing in the snow. Finally, he’d made sure that the family of each child had received a crate of food, including an entire ham, so that they would all be able to have a magnificent Christmas dinner.

“Gar sounds like a really good guy,” Cissie remarked as she brought the team water bottles and refreshments during a break in seeing the kids.

“Oh, yeah, he is. Well, I mean, I’ve never meet him, but Donna says he’s a terrific friend when he’s not being possessed by demons,” Cassie said, her eyes taking on the same glow of admiration they always did whenever she spoke of Donna Troy.

“I think you’re really nice, too, Cissie. I mean, you arranged this whole party,” Bart said in between wolfing down cookies. “Hey, after we’ve meet everyone, do we get to play with the reindeer? I bet we could make them fly—the kids would love that!”

“Pretty sure that counts as cruelty to animals,” Anita informed him. She patted his arm consolingly. “But if you like, I can buy you one of those reindeer antler headbands, and you can pretend you’re flying around.”

Even though Mrs. Tanaka was the true director of the party and Cissie was only her assistant, by the time the party ended at nine that night, she was exhausted. She could barely stumble through her goodbyes to the team as she saw them off.

“Thanks again for being here,” she said, stifling a yawn as she did. “I’ll see you all at the Garricks’ for the party, okay?”

“Probably not Rob,” Kon told her, jerking his thumb in Robin’s direction. “Since it’s party for heroes but one without masks, we probably won’t see any of the guys who are super uptight about their secret identity."

“Oh, I don’t know. You might be surprised,” Robin commented with a mysterious smile.

“Hmm.” Cissie shot him a speculative glance but knew that trying to get him to elaborate would be useless, so she shifted her attention to Bart. “Hey, I forgot to ask: what’s the dress code for this party?”

“Huh?” Bart stared blankly back at her. “Kon just said. No masks. Dress like a normal person. Or what you call normal in this century, anyway.”

“Yeah, but how do people actually dress for this party?” Cissie questioned, mildly exasperated. “Dressy? Casual? I want to know if I should be showing up in jeans or a cocktail dress. Or, like, should I be wearing a sexy Santa mini dress especially for this occasion?”

“The mini dress,” Kon said instantly. “Wear the mini dress.” He glanced at Cassie and Anita. “In fact, why don’t all you girls consider it a regulation for the night?”

Bart just shrugged. “I dunno. Didn’t ask. Just wear whatever you normally would for a party, I guess.”

 _Oh, well,_ Cissie thought to herself as she waved to them as they took off in the Super-Cycle. _What’s one more shopping trip?_


	7. Chapter 7

The morning Christmas break began, Cissie woke up early to grab breakfast at the cafeteria and then race back to her room to finish packing. The halls of her dorm were filled with the hubbub of the girls assembling their luggage to go home for the holidays. And this time, Cissie was part of it.

Anna Marie snagged her just as she was checking her room one last time to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind.

“Come on,” she said, motioning Cissie along with one hand, the armoured dragon claw ring on her finger glinting, matching the grommets on her black corset top. “I’m having a goodbye toast in my room.”

She led the way to the room she shared with Paige, who was already there with Jean and Katy.

Anna Marie handed them each a chocolate shot glass.

“Completely edible,” she assured them. “Made from German chocolate, even. We can eat them after our toast.”

She filled each shot glass from a bottle of Maker’s Mark, then raised her own.

“To a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year,” she said. “And for Delaney to call me.”

“To us kicking ass at the Christmas party!” Katy cheered. “And for Declan to call me, too.”

“To glamorous adventures all over the place, and for victory at swim team districts,” Paige added.

Jean thought for a moment. “To us winning the big basketball game, and for the Fashion Club to take a prize in the tri-county design contest. It doesn’t even have to be first.”

Looking around at them all, Cissie felt a swell of gratitude toward the girls who had accepted her without question, without even thinking twice about it.

She raised her own glass. “To friends.”

They all drained their shot glasses, leading to a cacophony of sputtering and choking as the whiskey burned their throats.

Cissie had to rush out then, lugging both of her suitcases to the front drive to board a waiting airport van that was already filled with students. But she couldn’t help but smile to herself  the whole time.

It felt nice to be a part of something.

And when her plane landed at the Gateway City airport and she walked to her flight’s baggage claim area only to be besieged by hugs from Cassie and Dr. Sandsmark, she couldn’t help but think it felt nice to be a part of a family, too.

“Thank you so much for letting me stay with you for the holidays,” Cissie said to Dr. Sandsmark as they walked out to the parking lot together.

“It wasn’t a problem, Cissie,” Dr. Sandsmark assured her, reaching out and resting a hand on her shoulder. “We’re happy to host you.”

If Cissie had thought the weeks leading up to the charity party had passed in a blur, she wasn’t prepared the next few days. It was a whirlwind of helping Cassie and her mother bake cookies, go grocery shopping to grab everything they needed for Christmas dinner, and prep her outfit for the big night. And before Cissie knew it, that night had arrived, and Kon was whisking her and Cassie away to the party.

“How do I look?” Cissie asked when she was safely on the ground again, her hands automatically going up to smooth down her hair.

“Like a stone cold fox,” Kon said with a grin, before reappearing and then disappearing with a full length mirror and standing with it beneath a streetlight. “But don’t just ask me. See for yourself.”

Walking up to the mirror, Cissie studied her reflection critically. She’d opted to wear a burgundy dress that was spritzed here and there with sparkling trails of delicate, sparkling beads. The skirt was just the slightest bit flared and it twirled and fluttered gently every time she moved. The shoulders and three-quarter sleeves were sheer floral lace, drawing attention to the graceful Queen Anne-style neckline. To complete the look, she’d curled her hair and then pulled it back from one side of her face, holding it there with an ornamental white silk rose hair clip she’d borrowed from Cassie, so that the long blonde tresses tumbled over the front of one shoulder in soft waves. On her feet were a pair of black suede ankle boots featuring a line of small gold buttons down the outer sides.

Out of everything, though, she felt most proud of her makeup. She didn’t wear many cosmetics these days, an enduring rebellion against Bonnie, who had insisted that Cissie wear a full face of it every day from her twelfth birthday right up until she’d lost custody. But today, Cissie had done her eyes in a soft, shimmering bridgework of ivory and gold and then used eyeliner to make small wings just off of each eyelid. She’d added mascara and blush, dusted her cheekbones with highlighter, and then for the final touch, applied a coat of cranberry-colored lipstick, one carefully selected to precisely match her fair coloring.

She wanted this night to be special. She truly hoped that it would be. It was the first Christmas party anyone had ever invited her to, and she wanted it to be spectacular.

“C’mon!” Cassie urged her, tugging on her arm. “You already look like a million bucks, so let’s go!”

“All right,” Cissie conceded, stepping away from the mirror to continue walking down the street. “And you look nice, too.”

Cassie glanced skeptically down at her skirt and sweater set. “Thanks, Cissie, but this outfit has Sunday school teacher written all over it. I wouldn’t have worn it if my mom hadn’t made me.”

Cissie patted her shoulder. “It’s still nice.”

In the space of a second, Kon returned the mirror back to wherever he’d gotten it from and rejoined them.

“Man, I hope Joan made that cheese ball that she did last year,” he enthused. “That stuff was delicious.”

“I like the cookies best,” Cassie contributed. “Those chocolate ones with the powdered sugar? Those are great.”

Cissie had nothing to contribute, never having experienced a Christmas party before. As they approached the Garrick home, she just hoped that no one would be able to tell she was such a novice.

While it was set back and apart from the rest of the neighborhood as if to mark it distinct, the Garrick residence wasn’t a particularly fancy house. But it was still nice: a spacious, sturdy stone two-story with white shutters with a wrap-around porch and a large lawn. At the moment, the house was covered in dangling Christmas lights and its driveway and walkway were fringed with tall light-up candy canes and gingerbread men. A life-size plastic Santa in his reindeer-led sleigh sat atop the garage roof. The porch was wrapped in garlands and ribbons, almost like it were a present itself.

Cassie couldn't help but slow her pace and stare in wonder at the sight of it. She'd seen houses decorated for Christmas before, but she'd never imagined she would be invited inside to celebrate with the occupants. She couldn't help but preen a bit, feeling very privileged.

The party was already in full swing as they approached; cars surrounded not only the Garricks’ house and driveway but continue to border the block for as far as Cissie could see, and when they walked up the steps, they could hear laughter and Christmas music from inside.

“Sounds like a happenin’ place,” Kon remarked, raising his fist to knock on the door. “Man, I can’t wait to talk about my tactile telekinesis. I bet a lot of people here will be real interested.”

Cissie and Cassie exchanged a dubious glance.

An older woman with a kind face and cropped gray hair opened the door and urged them inside. “Come in, come in, get out of that cold,” she invited them. “Have some cookies, and can I get you some cocoa? Hello Kon, hello Cassie, and—oh! Who’s this?” She paused upon seeing Cissie but offered her a wide smile nonetheless. “Hello, dear. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

The woman must be Joan Garrick. Kon and Cassie continued into the main room, and a surge of self-consciousness ran through Cissie as she was left on her own, wondering what Joan thought of some stranger showing up at her door like she belonged there, but she pushed it aside.

She extended her hand and gave the woman a polite smile. “I’m Cissie King-Jones. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.”

“Oh, you’re Bart’s friend!” Joan chuckled and pumped Cissie’s hand enthusiastically. “He’s told us all about you.”

Cissie paused, taken aback slightly. She’d never considered that any of her friends would ever so much as mention her to their families or colleagues. She found herself desperately hoping that neither Bart nor Max Mercury had said anything about her family situation. “Really?”

“Oh, yes,” Joan responded warmly. “He was so happy that day you appeared at their team hideout—he’d actually wanted to find you before, but Max had warned him away from it. He didn’t feel right about involving you in superheroics again given your situation,” she added apologetically.

Cissie felt a twist of discomfort that her hopeless home life had evidently been a dinner table discussion among Bart and his friends and family, but Joan tactfully glossed over the matter.

“But I suppose it all worked out in the end,” Joan continued. “Bart’s thrilled you could make it tonight, Cissie. We’re all so glad you could attend.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Cisse replied truthfully. She offered her wrapped gifts to Joan. “This is for the secret Santa,” she said, not sure if she should spoil the surprise now or not.

Really, though, she just hoped that Joan would like the gifts she selected. Since she’d had nothing else to go on, she’d followed Bart’s advice and bought the nicest “cooking stuff” she could find. The first was a polished wooden cutting board she’d bought at the general store in Bear Creek Crossing, depicting—what else—a carved scene of a mother bear and her cubs crossing a creek. It was handmade according to the tag and had been fairly pricey, but Cissie suspected that was because it was designed with the intention of catching the eye of tourists. She’d purchased the second gift at the general store as well: a set of antique serving knives with amber inlay handles. They’d also been expensive, and though Cissie knew it was tacky, she hoped that even if her gifts were lame, the hefty amount of money she’d put down for them from her Olympic winnings could make up for it.

“Oh, those go under the tree,” Joan told her cheerily. “Let me show you, and then you can go and help yourself to something to eat.”

Leading Cissie away from the entrance, Joan took her down the hall and through the kitchen, wading through a crush of people laughing and chatting together. Cissie followed her, exchanging probably a dozen separate “sorry”’s and “excuse me”’s with various partygoers along the way as they almost and did bump into each other along the way, until Joan took her into a living room that was slightly less packed but still full of people. It was decorated very nicely, too, Cissie couldn’t help but notice with a spark of longing. Fake snow, yellow string lights, and a miniature Christmas village lined the mantlepiece, while lighted garlands were draped on each of the windows. It looked perfectly homey and made Cissie want to curl up into an armchair right in front of the fireplace.

“Right over here,” Joan said, gesturing to a virtual sea of presents that was spilling out from beneath a vast Christmas tree that was absolutely dripping with all kinds of ornaments. “We’ll all be officially doing the exchange about an hour from now, so be sure you get yourself something to eat before all that hullabaloo.”

“Thank you,” Cissie said with a smile, relieved by Joan’s welcoming demeanor. She didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though, because Cassie popped up and dragged her off to meet people.

“There you are! C’mon, Cissie—sorry to interrupt, Joan—Courtney and some of the other JSA are over here. I’ve been telling them all about you, and now I want to introduce you!”

“You gals have fun!” Joan chuckled as Cissie was whisked away.

For the next forty-five minutes Cissie found herself being introduced to all manner of heroes, some of whom had open identities and others who didn’t. But their common thread, much to Cissie’s combined disbelief and amusement, was that they all wanted to hear about her life, which she couldn’t imagine was all that interesting in comparison to theirs.

“But you go to a boarding school,” Courtney Whitmore told her, half-awed, when Cissie expressed as much. “Just like in Harry Potter! That’s so cool.”

Cissie just shrugged. “It’s kinda cool,” she replied offhandedly, silently praying that none of her friends had mentioned the reason she was at boarding school.

“So, do you sneak out at night a lot?” Guy Gardner asked her interestedly. “Go and paint the town or just drink in the woods? Part of the fun of being in school is breaking the rules, you know.”

“Sometimes I sneak out after curfew,” Cissie admitted. “But there’s a club at school created especially so we can go on cool trips and con the school into paying for it, so I don’t really feel the need to break the rules too often.”

While she couldn’t deny that she was having fun and she was certainly happy to be included at the party, meeting so many new people in such a short time was exhausting. Which was why when Bart zipped up to her and asked her for help grabbing more firewood for the living room fireplace, she was was grateful for the excuse and didn’t question why he couldn’t do it himself.

In hindsight, she probably should have.

“Joan and Jay keep the extra wood in the corner of the coat room. You know, that little room right by the front door,” Bart told her. “There’s a short staircase to go down there, so be careful.”

“Will do,” Cissie easily, happy to help out Joan and Jay in any way she could. Hell, the hardest part of the task would be pushing through the throng of people to squeeze back into the living room.

As she pressed through the crowd to get back to the near-deserted front hall, she felt herself relax and she let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The party was fun, but with all the people in the house, she couldn’t help but feel a tad claustrophobic. Retrieving the firewood was almost refreshing, Cissie mused as she pulled open the coat room door.

But all thoughts about the firewood fled her mind in the next instant, because when she opened the door and went to step inside to locate the firewood, she found that the room was already occupied. A man and a woman were wrapped in a passionate embrace, but they separated slightly as the slant of light from the hall spilled directly onto their faces, bringing them to raise hands to their eyes at the sudden brightness.

“Sorry!” Cissie exclaimed, embarrassment flooding over her, and she hurriedly shut the door.

But as she did, a realization overwhelmed her embarrassment, as it dawned on her that she had recognized the both of them. The woman had been the blonde in the leather jacket Cissie had seen all those months ago in Keystone City. The one who’d been tending to Green Arrow.

And the man with her tonight had been Oliver Queen, mayor of Star City.

So the blonde was with Oliver Queen now and had been with Green Arrow then. But honestly, the two men bore too much more more than a passing resemblance to each other for Cissie to believe they were actually two separate people at all.

Oliver Queen was Green Arrow. Oliver Queen was Cissie’s father.

Without really thinking about it, Cissie opened the front door and closed it firmly behind her, walking round the corner to the far side of the porch and leaning against the railing. No one else was out there, probably because she was the only one senseless enough to want to be outside on a cold night like tonight. Unable to hold back a shiver, her teeth chattered violently—dammit, she should have thought to grab her coat.

A blur of motion was visible beside her for only a split second, and then Bart was there.

“You didn’t talk to Green Arrow?” he asked disappointedly.

Cissie gave an exasperated huff as she realized that Bart had set all of it up; really, she should have seen it coming. “First, I didn’t even realize that was Green Arrow until after I’d run away in shame after finding him making out with his girlfriend. Second, he was making out with his girlfriend!” The full meaning of what she’d just said occurred to her. “Ugh, that’s gross. I just saw my dad making out with somebody. _Ew_.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t see you, and neither did Black Canary,” Bart reassured her blithely. “They couldn’t see your face. I heard them asking each other about it. So if you wanted to go tell your dad that he’s your dad—”

“Gonna stop you right there,” Cissie interrupted him. “I just found out my dad’s identity all over again. I need a few minutes to adjust.” She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling a sliver of annoyance. “And I don’t appreciate you arranging a meet-cute for my dad and I, by the way. This is something I need to do on my own. No offense, but I really, _really_ don’t want anyone interfering.”

“I’m sorry,” Bart said, and to his credit, he did seem genuinely remorseful. “I just don’t get why you have a dad but can't meet him. And he can’t meet you, since he doesn’t know that you exist. I just,” he shrugged, “really don’t get it, that’s all.”

Cissie knew not to take Bart’s inability to understand twenty-first century emotions or complexities personally and thus decided not to bother with a grudge for it. “It’s totally forgivable, Bart. Just don’t interfere again, promise? I won’t be able to handle you constantly setting up wacky sitcom scenarios that result in me meeting my dad,” she warned him.

“Sitcoms are boring,” Bart replied scornfully, but then grew uncertain. “But as for that other thing, um, it might be a little bit too late.”

“What do you mean?” Cissie gave Bart a hard stare as panic began to pulse through her. “Bart, you’re one of my best friends, but I swear to God if you’ve told anyone else, or, I don’t know, hired a skywriter or some other crap—”

“Nothing like that. You’ll just have another chance to meet Green Arrow before the end of the night, that’s all,” Bart told her in a tone of forced nonchalance. “So if you want to come back inside—”

Cissie groaned, her racing heart slowing down slightly as her alarm ebbed away. “No. I’m staying out here. I don’t want to have to meet Green Arrow or Oliver Queen or whatever else he calls himself—”

“The Emerald Archer,” Bart supplied helpfully.

“—again in a room where I’ll have to shout just to have a conversation.” Cissie resolutely gripped the porch railing. “So if Green Queen has to come and see me, send him out here.”  

“Joan will be starting the secret Santa in a few minutes,” Bart wheedled.

“Then please make sure she gets the gift I brought for her, because I’m staying right where I am until I have my last encounter of the night with his mayorship,” Cissie said firmly.

Bart hesitated, something he rarely did, but then he agreed. “Okay. I’ll bring you some hot cocoa in a little while.” Then he zipped away.

When he departed, Cissie let out a long sigh and put her face in her hands for a few moments, resting it there as the image of Oliver Queen and the blonde woman—Black Canary, Bart had called her—flashed into her mind again. She cringed, both out of remaining embarrassment at stumbling across the pair of them and at renewed doubts about how Queen would react to her. It looked like things were serious between him and Black Canary, and if he was focused on his relationship with her, what room in his life did he have for an illegitimate daughter? Hell, even without Black Canary, Queen was still a politician. An illegitimate child like Cissie suddenly showing up might damage his chances at a re-election, giving him a whole new reason for him to turn her away.

Gripping the railing tightly, Cissie leaned forward, letting her hair spill over her face in an attempt to disguise the onslaught of tears that were suddenly rolling down her face without her permission. She was very grateful to be alone so that no one else had to witness her crying.

Just then, the front door opened.

Closing her eyes, Cissie begged the person to continue down the porch steps and leave without ever seeing her.

No such luck.

Footsteps neared, walking to the edge of the porch, and a voice called out to her once the steps rounded the corner.

“Cissie King-Jones?”

Hastily dabbing at her eyes and mentally thanking Bonnie (for once) for teaching her to always make sure her eye makeup was waterproof, Cissie turned in the direction of the voice, trying to keep her tone from sounding too irritated. “That’s me,” she said, and was about to continue, but was struck speechless when she saw who it was, even as she knew she should have been able to predict it.

Oliver Queen. Green Arrow. 

Of course.  _ Of course. _

He came to stand beside her, giving her a warm smile as he did. “I’m not sure if you remember me, but we met at the food bank a few weeks back.” He didn’t take the opportunity to remind her that he was the mayor, she noticed. “I’m Oliver Queen. And since we’re at a Christmas party and not school, feel free to just call me Oliver.”

“I remember.” Cissie gave him a smile, hoping it didn’t look too artificial, but she couldn’t manage any better. Her mind felt like it had frozen in panic but was simultaneously working too fast for her to think straight.

“Funny, I didn’t know you were one of Bart’s friends back then,” Oliver commented. “Small world.”

_ You have no idea, _ Cissie thought dryly, but then said out loud, “Well, I guess it would seem small when you’ve got people like Bart, who can run all across the world in ten seconds.”

Oliver laughed. It was a deep, pleasant laugh that felt oddly welcoming to Cissie, but maybe that feeling was just sentiment clouding her judgement. “True enough.” 

He reached into the pocket of his trousers, and for the first time, Cissie observed that he was wearing a pair of tan corduroys and one of those Icelandic type of sweaters with the snowflake pattern across the collar and chest.

He looked like someone’s dad. Scratch that, he looked like her  _ dad. _

She was so preoccupied with studying his appearance that when he drew out a small, flat box covered in black velvet and held it out to her, it almost didn't occur to her to respond.

“I was your secret Santa this year,” he explained with a smile. “Bart actually made sure of that, and he tried to give me some ideas about what you would like. I wasn’t too sure about some of his advice, though, so I ended up just going with my gut about what might be the coolest Christmas present for a girl your age. I hope he didn’t tell you to count on anything and get your hopes up too high.”

A lump formed in Cissie’s throat at her unwitting father telling her to lower her hopes, even as in the back of her mind she realized that Oliver being her secret Santa was what Bart had hinted about back at the Kent farm and earlier tonight.

“I’ve become very good at managing expectations,” she managed to reply.

“In that case, here you are.” Oliver handed the box to her. “Let me know if it’s not to your taste, and I can try to get you something else.”

Smiling as best she could, Cissie accepted the box. She already could guess at the shape and style that it contained jewelry, but when she opened the lid, she couldn’t hold back a gasp of astonishment. On a white cushion lay a beautiful double-tiered silver necklace of delicate pearls and few rubies for contrast. She'd stopped enough jewelry heists to tell that all of the gems were real. The necklace was beyond gorgeous, tasteful but still eye-catching, lovely but not loud or showy like some of the costume jewelry Bonnie had forced her into wearing.

Still, an ache coursed through Cissie as she gazed at the jewelry her father was offering her. In another life, in another universe, one where he’d raised her himself, he might give her this necklace or something like it for prom or on her sweet sixteenth.

As it was, though, he was just giving it to her out of obligation. He thought he was just one stranger giving a gift to another as part of a party game.

It was Oliver who broke the silence between them. 

“If you don’t like it, I can try to find you something else,” he offered, no hint of resentment in his voice. “When I asked for advice, Dinah told me that a lot of girls like to get jewelry as gifts, but it’s fine if you’re not one of them.”

_ Dinah? _ That must be the blonde woman she’d seen him with. Bart had called her Black Canary. But that didn’t matter now.

Cissie realized she’d been quiet for too long. “No,” she said, unable to cover up a sharp exhale as she did. She wanted this present from her father, even if it was the only one she’d ever receive. “It’s magnificent. Thank you.”

“Figured every girl could use a little bit of glitz and glam,” Oliver replied easily. “Even if you don’t wear it often, you can wear it every once in a while just to feel special.”

Cissie nodded, but her thoughts were racing as a possibility leapt into her mind. It was a risk, but she decided to take it.

She indicated the necklace. “Would you help me put it on?”

“No problem.” Carefully lifting it from the box, he held it up as she turned around and scooped up her hair so he would be able to loop the chain around her neck. He did so without missing a beat, and as she let her hair fall again, Cissie found herself wondering if he often helped Dinah with her jewelry. “Done,” he announced.

Cissie turned back around to face him, and Oliver gave an approving chuckle.

“I tell you, hepcat, you make that ice look cool,” he said, and it such a  _ cheesy _ thing to say, such a  _ dad _ thing to say, that Cissie couldn’t hold back a laugh despite her tension.

“And look at that, it even matches your dress,” he went on, shaking his head slightly. “Almost as if it were fate.”

God, this was just too much. Like her life was some kind of cosmic joke and her telling Oliver the truth was the punchline.

Though her mouth began to form words, Cissie found herself unable to speak, paralyzed by indecision, and she turned away from him.

She was here alone with her father. She could tell him the truth tonight and finally rid herself of the burden of carrying around this secret.   

But he was being so  _ nice _ to her. She didn’t want to ruin that. And she didn’t want to mar the memory of the first and, thus far, only Christmas party she’d ever been to.

Her actions hadn’t escaped Oliver’s notice.

“Hey.” He lightly touched her shoulder. “You doing all right, kid?”

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Didn’t want to take the chance.

Oliver continued despite the silence on her part. “You know, I’ve been told I do more talking than listening when it comes to other people, but if you want to get something off your chest, I’ll do my best to avoid living up to my reputation.”

Taking a deep breath, Cissie did her best to gather her courage. 

She had to move. Had to speak. Had to take this chance.

She whipped around to face Oliver and blurted out the words before she could second-guess herself. 

“I’m your daughter.”

Oliver stared at her.

“My mother was Bonnie King,” Cissie continued. She swallowed, wondering how much information to give, and then cautiously went on. “She lost custody of me a while back. I don’t know if you remember her.”

Oliver blinked and continued to stare. “I—you’re— _ daughter? _ ”

“Yes. Your daughter.” Cissie watched him, her stomach twisting itself into nervous knots and heart going a million miles per minute. “I did a DNA test a few months back.”

“I did one as well,” a new voice added.

The two of them whirled to find Robin at the far end of the porch, his cape wrapped around his shoulders like a shroud.

“Cissie told me about her discovery, so I ran my own independent test just for explicit confirmation,” he explained. “It was the same result. Oliver, you’re Cissie’s father.”

That figured. Cissie hadn’t asked him to do the second test, but it was just like Robin to take it upon himself to do it anyway without bothering to stop to get her permission. She would have been annoyed if it hadn’t been such typical behavior from him.

As it was, Cissie looked to Oliver for his reaction, but he just gazed at her, still frozen in shock. She went to look back at Robin, but he was gone. Naturally. If the situation wasn’t so serious, she would have rolled her eyes.

“A daughter,” Oliver muttered finally, his tone half-dazed. “ _ My  _ daughter.” He shook his head, but then a grin slowly spread across his face. “Geez, wait until your brothers hear about this.”

“Brothers?” Cissie repeated, barely believing it, her hopes rising slightly at the sight of Oliver’s smile. “I have brothers?”

“Two brothers and a niece,” Oliver told her, grinning widely now. “I take it you want to meet them?”

This was it, then. This was the moment. Cissie searched his face as she finally dared to ask the question that she’d lived in both hope and fear of having answered. “Do you really want me, then? You want me to be your daughter?”

“Without a doubt,” Oliver said immediately, and his tone was so strong and so sure that even though he was still basically a stranger, Cissie impulsively threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

And he didn’t hesitate a second before hugging her right back.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**One Month Later**

The day was unusually sunny and bright for late January in western Pennsylvania, with sunlight streaming through the wide bay window of Cissie’s room at the Queen mansion and falling in stripes across the cushioned window seat and thick carpet. As Cissie came to stand in front of the full-length mirror right by her walk-in closet, she found that she need to change her stance so that the glare didn’t obscure her reflection.

Scrutinizing herself in the mirror one last time, Cissie found herself second-guessing her entire outfit, wondering if it was the best choice or if it was too plain for the night in question. At first, the sweater, skirt, and boots had seemed both comfortable and chic, like they would be perfect for the relaxed dinner out that was planned. She’d texted all her friends at the Elias school and had gotten a bunch of approving responses, but now that she was about to leave, she suddenly was worried that somehow it just wasn’t  _ right,  _ especially not for a meeting as important as the one she’d be going to.

A sudden knock interrupted her from any further contemplation of her fashion choices, and Cissie whirled to find a familiar caped figure perched outside her window. With huff somewhere between amusement and resignation, she opened one of the windows to let Robin climb inside.

“I hope you weren’t standing there while I changed,” she remarked offhandedly as she walked over to her vanity. 

“Just got here. And I’m not planning on staying. I just wanted to check on you,” he replied, following her further into the room and standing behind her as she began fixing her hair.

“I just had dinner with the team last week,” Cissie reminded him, but she wasn’t upset at all. As far as she was concerned, any contact her old friends wanted to maintain with her was good contact.

“That was then, this is now,” Robin countered. “And, well, I know your life has changed a lot in the past few weeks, so I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with everything that’s happening.”

Cissie abandoned her hairbrush and turned toward him. “I’m fine, Rob. Better than I’ve been in an awfully long time. There’s been plenty of change, yeah, but all for the good.”

She wasn’t lying. Living with Oliver was a welcome change—hell, just having a parent that actually gave a damn about her was a welcome change. And knowing that after all of her indecision and angst about his potential rejection, his unhesitating acceptance of her had restored something within her that had been missing for a while. What exactly it was, Cissie wasn’t quite sure. Maybe a certain type of faith in humanity, maybe a certain brand of hope. But she felt strengthened and more in control of her life that ever before, even when she’d decided to quit being Arrowette. She felt like she had her life back, even though she’d never actually possessed this life before.

As if listening in on her thoughts, Robin raised a question. “Does he know? About you being Arrowette?”

Cissie paused for a moment, considering her words carefully. “He knows some things,” she said eventually. “Not everything. Some things . . .” her mind drifted to that night in the woods when she was stalking Marcey’s murderers. “Some things he just doesn’t need to know right now.”

Robin accepted this response with a nod and didn’t pressure her further. Cissie took the opportunity to check her new purse to make sure she had everything she might use when out to dinner, tossing in a compact mirror just in case.

“Big night?” he asked idly, going from a detective out for answers to her friend in the space of a few sentences.

“A huge one,” Cissie admitted, letting her nerves show through for the first time. “I’m officially meeting Oliver’s best friend and longtime girlfriend. We’re all going to dinner together.”  

“Wow, you're meeting both Hal and Dinah at the same time?” Robin’s eyebrows rose.

“I chose it,” Cissie told him, leaving out how she’d debated with herself over and over again about the decision. “Figured I’d get them both out of the way at once and find out right away if they both hate me.”

“They’re not going to hate you,” Robin said immediately. “You worried about the same thing with Oliver, and he didn’t hate you, did he?”

“Just the opposite,” Cissie agreed, a smile automatically spreading across her face at just the mention. Having a nice parent for once seemed almost too good be true, but she was quite happy to say it was her reality now. However, there were a few lingering questions that needed to be answered. “And speaking of me telling Oliver the truth, how did you know that I’d be telling him that night at the party? Not even I had planned for that.”

“Just a precaution, really,” Robin told her modestly. “It was fairly obvious from that night at the Kent farm that Bart had something planned, and I didn’t think you needed the extra stress of that on top of what you were already dealing with. So I pestered Bart until he told me what was going on, and then I tried to prevent it, but trying to stop Bart from doing something he really wants to do is like trying to take on Darkseid with a plastic sword. So I figured I’d stay on watch to do damage control once things started going wrong.” 

Cissie gave short laugh and shook her head in disbelief, both at Robin’s determination and at her own luck at finding such a good friend. “You mean you stayed outside the Garricks’ house on a winter night for God knows how long just in case I needed a shoulder to cry on?”

“Yeah. But as fate would have it, you didn’t need that shoulder.” Robin smiled at her.

He really did have a nice smile, Cissie couldn’t help but notice. But it matched well, because as it would turn out, Robin was a really nice guy.

And so, without hesitation, she stood from her chair and pulled him into a deep kiss. He stiffened at first, and then she thought he might have started to kiss back, but she was already pulling away.

“I may not wear a mask anymore, but if you ever need me to return the favor with a stakeout for something you need, I’ll be happy to help,” she told him fondly.

“Huh.” Robin seemed slightly dazed from the kiss, unconsciously raising a gloved hand to touch his lips, but he recovered at her words. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

A knock on the door interrupted them, but at the same time, a low beeping emitted from a communicator on Robin’s belt.  

“That’s my dad,” Cissie said, glancing at the door, a thrill running through her at the words. _ My dad.  _ She had a dad. A living, breathing dad who cared about her. Who had taken custody of her.

“And that’s Oracle,” Robin said, already slipping out the window. “Have to go, Cissie. But it was good to see you.” He hesitated, but then added, “It’s always good to see you.”

Cissie grinned at him, noting the hesitance and finding it endearing. “You, too. So don’t be a stranger. Come by any time.” 

He nodded and then dropped out of sight, and Cissie sent a fond glance his way before shutting the window, grabbing her purse, and making her way to the door and opening it.

“Ready to go?” Oliver asked cheerfully. He was dressed smartly but not overly formally, and Cissie took heart in his buoyant demeanor.

If he wasn’t worried, then Cissie probably didn’t have to worry, either. And what Robin had said was true—she needn’t have worried last time. 

“More than ready,” Cissie replied, trying to sound more confident than she felt, and fell into step beside her father.

He cast her an appraising glance as they entered the garage and climbed into to his sleek black Audi. “Are you stressing out about tonight?”

Cissie rarely had ever been honest with any adult about how she was feeling, at least not since Marcey had died. It was just usually easier to lie than take the chance of being truthful but then only getting a sneer or snide remark in response. And another lie, another dismissal, sat on the tip of her tongue.

But when her eyes met Oliver’s green gaze that held nothing but concern for her, she was caught off-guard. No one had ever looked at her that way before, and certainly not anyone she’d called a parent.

Thus, taking a deep breath, Cissie decided to take yet another risk with Oliver. “Yes,” she replied, glancing away as she did. “I mean, it’s nothing against you or the people you like, but it’s a big step, you know? Telling people that I’m your long-lost daughter. I just . . . I don’t want them to think I’m not good enough for you.”

Reaching over, Oliver clapped her on the shoulder, looking at her directly. “Hey, kiddo, we’re gonna get through tonight together, all right? I’m not leaving you out in the cold to stand before a judge and jury. And besides, Dinah and Hal aren’t the kind of people to decide you’re ‘not good enough’ to be related to me. Jesus, I’d punch out anyone who so much as thought that.” He scowled at the idea.

“To be honest, I’d have probably decked them first,” Cissie confessed.

Oliver laughed out loud at that. “Good for you. Makes me proud to see the family resemblance.” He grew serious again. “I trust Dinah and Hal. And there’s no way they’re going to walk away from this dinner disliking you. But even if we were in some screwy universe where they did, that doesn’t change that _ I _ want you to be a part of my life. And there’s not a thing anyone, anywhere, can do to make me think otherwise.”

Cissie had never been much of one for contact; the only time she’d received it as a kid was sparring with her judo instructor or having her form corrected by her ballet instructor. Even these days, other people were usually the first to reach out to her, and she rarely reciprocated.

This time, though, she reached out to Oliver, putting a hand on his shoulder as so many others had done for her. Just the simple gesture filled her with nervousness, not sure if her movements were too clumsy or awkward. 

“Thank you,” she said. The words didn’t seem sufficient, not enough to express how she’d once lived in fear of disappointing Bonnie, sure that her mother would stop loving her if Cissie didn’t live out her dreams for her. “I’m glad to have you in my life, too, Oliver.”

Smiling, Oliver reached out to gently ruffle her hair. “You all set to get this show on the road?”

Another dad-ism, but again, Cissie couldn’t bring herself to mind. “Let’s go,” she said, squaring her shoulders.

Opening the garage door, Oliver started the car and backed out, doing a three-point turn so he could pull out of the mansion’s extensive driveway. And then the two of them were zooming along the street.

It wasn’t the father-daughter bonding she had daydreamed about. She wasn’t Arrowette fighting bank robbers alongside Green Arrow.

But she was Cissie King-Queen going out to dinner with her father and his closest friends, and she was more than happy with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Cissie's friends at the Elias School--Jean, Paige, Katy, and Anna Marie are very loosely based on the X-Men characters of Jean Grey, Paige Guthrie, Kitty Pryde, and Rogue. I did this mostly because I am terrible at coming up with OCs and I also couldn't find enough non-hero DC teenage girls who would fit the bill. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and have a happy Yuletide!


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